The Secret Lives of Four Book Two A Troubling Past
by Dagas089
Summary: Same goes for this story; don't read it! I didn't even have the motivation to finish this thing! That should be proof enough that it's not worth your time!
1. Prologue

Prologue

"What? What do you mean "he's gone"? Don't you be screwing with me!" yelled one of the wardens at the LA local prison.

"I mean that he's not in his holding cell! I came to wake him up this morning and he was just gone! And none of the other inmates are talking!"

"Well, what are you waiting for? Why haven't you sounded the alarm yet?" the warden yelled in a fit of rage as his face began to turn a furious shade of red.

"Because, last night, someone cut the wires and de-activated it! None of us would be able to set it off!"

"What? Damnit! How long has that bastard been planning this?"

"Planning what, sir?"

"His escape! Alert all personnel! That mad bastard had escaped! Alert all personnel on the intercom that inmate number 666 has escaped his holding cell!"

"Right!"

"Chaos filled the air as warden number 86 darted down the disparity fill hallways of the jail. This was the worst thing that had ever happened in this correctional institute since the now escaped inmate had arrived. Everyone in this facility feared- no – everyone had fully expected this dreadful event to occur sooner or later, but nobody ever expected the inmate to wait three and a half years to escape from these prison walls.

By now, nobody could tell where he was now or how he got out. The only signs of him that were left behind were difficult to decipher and were purposefully left by him.

Left behind were traces of the man's existence, simple and seeming to be without meaning, but obvious to even the most foolish of men. Listing off what was left behind; 1095 tally marks and the start of another were etched into the cold, lifeless brick walls of the cell, a distraught ward and all of the cameras and security alarms de-activated.

Hours before, inmate number 666 had become virtually invisible and had made a daring escape, leaving behind barely a single trace. Only the fellow inmates had noticed his leaving, and there was no way they would start talking any time soon. This was merely fear induced by the power and respect the inmate had gained over the years. That's usually how it goes; you gain respect there, and you're set for life. None of the inmates, once questioned, ever spoke, and they never would speak of that day; the day that inmate number 666, the most dangerous inmate in the ward, had escaped.

3 days later-outside local sweets shop just outside of Tokyo, Japan.

"What do you mean, "she's dead"? Who killed her?" the escaped convict screamed into the pay phone.

"We're not completely sure, but all proof that has been gathered has led to Kira being the cause of death, and Kira is currently incarcerated," said the man on the other end of the phone. "Sorry, but that's all the info we can provide." The man was lying. Kira had been dead for months, but he couldn't announce that to any living soul. If information like that got out, it may cause a mass uproar.

"Wha… tha… bullshit!" the convict screamed in the fit of rage. It's not that the man didn't provide the information that he needed, it was the fact that the man had provided the information that he feared hearing. Naomi Misora; the woman that he had broken out of jail to get revenge on was dead- no- killed; murdered by Kira almost a year ago.

Upon disconnecting the line, the escaped convict maliciously slammed the pay phone back down onto the receiver hard enough to be able to see the glass that made up the box begin to rattle.

"Damnit! How is she dead? How can this be?" the felon furiously thought. Stressfully, he brushed his pale fingers through his dark, shaggy hair. As the moments dragged on, the color of his skin began to grow paler and paler as exhaustion and disturbing thoughts began to overcome his entire body.

"What do I do now? I risked my life and dignity to get to Japan, and for what? Finding that someone else has stolen my prey?" the man thought as he nervously chewed on his thumbnail. "What am I to do now? Do I turn myself in? Do I try to live the life of an ex-convict? No! I can't do that! The FBI would constantly be on my tail until I'm caught or until they see me dead! Ah! There's no way out! I'm sure to be caught within a week… But I can't just give up, that would be throwing away my life. But I have to have some sort of motivation for living! I-" Suddenly, the man's thoughts abruptly paused in the middle of his panicked planning. Something had hit him; an idea. A dastardly, dangerous and insane idea. In fact, it was so insane, it just couldn't fail!

A devious smirk crept up his face as his pale skin began to retrieve its original color. A pure sense of pride coming about his being, the man covered his mouth with his hand, knowing he wouldn't be able to contain himself. He started with a low giggle which in a matter of seconds evolved into a strange laugh which, without warning, turned into a muffled, demonic burst of cackles and gasps from the man struggling to catch his breath. This cackle was one that used to be well known and greatly feared by the natives of Japan; a cackle that seemed to spin about your head after reading a terrifying book or watching a horrific movie. There's no explanation for where this cackle came from, but you can hear it in the recesses of your mind, and you fear every second of it ringing in you ears. This laugh was none other than the laugh of the horrid being known as a shinigami.

"Kyah-hahahahahah!" he cackled from behind the tight grip of his scraggly hand. The man gasped for breath once more before looking up, his eyes glowing a demonic shade of crimson. In a low, cracked whisper, the man said aloud behind his loosening hand, "If my designated target is dead, then I guess I'll have to go after the next best thin…"

Slowly, the man brought back his posture from the hunched over posture that had been induced by his laughing fit. He stood, clasped the handle of the phone booth in his hand, and whispered before taking his silent, collected leave, "L… I'll kill you from the outside-in… I swear on my life…"


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

"Dear lord, you two! Do you see now why I tell you this shit?" Dagas angrily snarled as she loaded her two drunken friends into one of their coworker's cars.

"Tell us what about shit?" Mello slurred out, the ungodly amount of alcohol beginning to take control of his speech.

"Oh my god!" Dagas groaned as she slammed the car door behind her. "Hey, thanks again for this, Matsuda," she thanked the driver, directing her attention away from the idiots sitting next to her in the back seat of the silver five-seat Subaru.

"Oh, no problem! I've been in this situation with some friends of mine too. I totally get it," the young man admitted with a friendly smile.

"You think the chief will catch wind of this?" she nervously asked.

"He may, but even if he did, he realizes that he can't afford to loose you three, so there's no chance of him firing you. I would be surprised if he even took any notice to it."

"Oh, thank god!" she sighed, slumping back in her seat with relief.

And what a great thing to know. You see, for a good half a year, the National Police Agency placed in Japan had been proud to say that they had the best of the best on their team; Matt; a genius tech whiz, Mello; an expert in the world of conning and a former mafia lord, and Dagas; a cunning, assumed to be dead American.

About 6 months ago, these three, with the help of some of the men on the force, teamed up with the world's greatest detective, L, and solved the Kira case, leaving the perpetrator stunned that he could have fallen this far in his prime. In short, it was a fabulous victory for the side of justice. However, with these three having nowhere else to go after the case, L humbly opened his doors to them and made sure that they were enlisted in the NPA as agents. Though they started off as nameless, mysterious rookies, they worked up the ranks to professional on-scene investigators, solving crimes with the rest of the force and leading phenomenally executed attacks on some of the most dangerous criminals in the area.

Despite their high ranks, however, many people on the force still thought of them as under qualified teenagers who had no clue how to make a report on a case. In fact, most of the force felt this way; all accept the people who worked on the Kira case along side them. Frankly said, these three held amazing potential and this small group of people could see that just by seeing the look in their eyes as a new case came in.

Anyways, tonight was a night to be remembered. These three, along side their comrades, had just sent one of Aoyama's biggest drug dealers to prison in a way that made it look like their job was as easy as lifting a finger. In celebration of this bust, a group of the people who had been involved in this case all went out to a popular bar to have a little party. Unfortunately, Matt and Mello had both abused their privilege to alcohol that night and were eventually told to go home. The two had drunk only a few times previous to this and underestimated its mysterious effects, inevitably leading to a terrible case of hang over in the morning.

Even though it was their own fault for drinking too much, Dagas brought it upon herself to feel stressed out for the three of them. She commonly did this when she felt there was a need for panic and nobody else found the situation to be a problem. A sad predicament for herself, but in the drunken minds of her two friends, this seemed to be the most hilarious thing they had ever seen.

"So, are you guys still living in that huge building that we used for the Kira case?" Matsuda asked keeping his eyes fixed on the road ahead of him.

"What, we never told you that? Wow, do I feel stupid," Dagas chuckled, her hand placed on her forehead in embarrassment.

"Heh, that's cuz you are stupid…" Mello snickered with a dopey look on his scarred face.

She shook her head in disgust. "Yeah, we're still living there. We found no need to spend money on a new place or take down the old one, so that's what we call home."

"Wow, that's a pretty big place to live. Do you ever get lost?"

"Naw, we've got a pretty firm grasp on the layout of the building, so it's kinda hard to get lost."

"Huh, I never would have thought."

"Yeah… So how's your life going?"

"Pretty fair. I've gotten back into the dating game, so I've met a couple nice people… Although, there was one date that I had who stole my money clip while we were walking in the park."

"Now do you see why I don't like the idea of dating?" Dagas asked with an amused smile.

"Yeah, I guess I kinda get it. Just don't say something that'll make me wanna give this up, okay?" he desperately demanded.

"Okay, I promise. I wasn't planning on saying anything like that, anyways."

"Oh… thanks," he said as his cheek bones began to turn a light shade of pink.

"Oh, oh my gosh!" Mello gasped.

"What is it now?" Dagas groaned.

"Dude, dude! I don't think L caught B!"

"Naw man, you crazy. He got em' when we were, like, this old," Matt struggled to clarify, holding his hand up to about knee high to signify how tall he was at the age he was referring to.

"Hah! And how old is that, Matt?" Matsuda snickered while looking at the rear-view mirror at the two goons in the back seat.

"Well, uh, this old!" Matt repeated, his hand still at the same height.

"Haha! This is just too funny!"

"I know!" Dagas agreed.

"Stop laughing! I don't think L caught B!" Mello shouted.

"But he did… didn't he?" Matt questioned.

He took a pause to think for a moment. "Whoa, I dunno…"

"Okay, okay, who's B?" Dagas forced out from behind her hysterical laughter.

"He's that kid from the orphanage… that kid who killed those guys in… in Los Angelis,"

"Wait, wait, what guys?" Dagas asked. Funny how she was actually expecting a clear answer.

"Those three guys! They, like, died! And, and they all had really gay names… But B killed them… I, I wonder why…"

An urgent look now coming about her face, Dagas nervously snickered with a nervous smile, "Heh, wow, you must be really drunk, Mello. That's an absurd story."

"But it's not a story. Why don't you believe me…?" he sadly asked, his head lowered and his long blond hair falling over his icy eyes.

"Aw, honey, I believe you," Dagas assured him in the voice of a first grade teacher as she laid a hand on his back. "I just thought it sounded silly."

"It's not supposed to sound silly…" he pouted.

"Well I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings," she apologized while struggling to hold back her laughter.

"Wow Dagas, why don't you give him a teddy bear while you're at it," Matsuda scoffed with the amused grin that Dagas had been wearing moments ago.

"Wha? I want a teddy bear! They're so soft!" Matt exclaimed with an excited gleam in his eyes.

"Not gonna happen," she said disgustedly.

"Aw… I wanted a teddy bear…"

A few minutes later, the small car pulled up to the oh so familiar investigation building, dropping off the two drunkards and the very aggravated ginger. "See you Tuesday!" Dagas called back as Matsuda's car edged out into the road from the curb.

"Sure thing!" he called back before pulling out.

"Can either of you walk in?" Dagas asked.

"Uh, I can try…" Matt slurred. True, the initial drunkenness hadn't completely set in on him quite yet but he still wasn't all that steady on his feet, concerning Dagas of his well being.

"Okay then, Mello, you'll come in with me," she demanded as she slung Mello's limp arm over her shoulders.

"What, why? I'm fine… honest," he started, his feet already being dragged along as Dagas walked forward.

"Nice try, but you're argument isn't convincing enough for me to ever consider letting you walk on your own."

"Oh… what's an argument?"

Disgusted by his utterly idiotic response, Dagas refused to say another word.

After about a solid half an hour of attempting to drag the two up to their floors, Dagas decided to flat out quit and dumped them both in Matt's room. With a sigh of relief, she slammed the door shut and got as far away as she could from them without leaving the building. By the time she had gotten down to the first floor, she simply took a seat on one of the green sofas at the edge of the room, ignoring the fact that L was working on something on one of the desk tops just a few feet away.

"You seem to be in a terrible mood," L said to her as she slammed down face first onto the soft surface of the seat.

"No, you think?" she sarcastically snapped.

"Yes, in fact, I do," he replied. Obviously he wasn't getting the point of her sarcasm.

She looked up and gave him a confused look. Not for a second did he turn away from his work. Ignoring his unexpected response, Dagas replied, "Well I am in a bad mood, nice of you to notice."

"What happened? I thought you said you and your task force went out for drinks."

"That's precisely what my problem is; we went out for drinks!"

"Could you elaborate on that?" he requested.

"Your two little Wammy's House prodigies got drunk at the bar and we had to have Matsuda take us back!"

"Good god, why would they do that?" he exclaimed in his normal monotone, his eyes still fixed on the bright computer screen in front of him.

"Hell, if I know! And on top of that they were both rambling on about this weird story about a kid from Wammy's House while we were in the car."

"Did they say who the child was?"

"Ye…" she paused for a moment to think about how she would word her next question. Weather what those two had said was true or if it was just the alcohol talking, she suddenly had a huge urge to find out. "Yeah, they said who he was… but can I ask you something about him?"

"Um, sure," he replied, a hint of unsteadiness in his tone.

"Who was B? And on top of that, what did he do that was so awful?"

Immediately following this question, the clacking of the keyboard in front of him stopped and the entire room went silent. For a moment, Dagas had feared that she had accidentally hit a raw nerve of his. After a few seconds, L turned to look her in the eye and asked, "They were talking about B?"

"Uh, yeah. What was so horrible about him?"

He sighed, "B was another child in line to become my successor. In Wammy's House, when you work up the ranks, you are given a letter. These letters are referred to as "Wammy's Alphabet". Before B was A… unfortunately, his life was ended all too soon. Obviously, B came after him, and the way he was trained, he was turned into, what they hoped would be, an exact copy of myself."

"Wait, a copy? But that's impossible," Dagas stated.

"Oh, and Watari and I knew that all too well. Sure, he was a lot like me, but he did have one huge flaw; as A killed himself due to the pressure of it all, B, however, had gone… oh, how should I put this…? Insane. He had become a complete psychopath."

"Wow, that's freaky…"

"Indeed. Anyways, roughly about two years before the Kira case had started, he started up a game with which he thought he would win. In the process, he killed three innocent people in the most gruesome of ways and attempted to kill himself. His thought was that if he died, then it would be the one case that I could never solve. Tragically for him, we caught him before he died. Last I checked, he's still in solitary confinement in a local prison in Los Angelis."

"Wow, that's insane! He seriously killed three people in an attempt to outsmart you?"

"Well, putting it bluntly, yes, he did."

"Whoa… that sounds like a pretty interesting case… I hope you don't mind my asking, but would you mind if I looked at the case file? I mean, if you have it."

"Of course. I'm almost glad you asked. Do you remember hearing about the death of Naomi Misora?"

"Oh, I did more than hear about it," she mumbled.

"Hm?"

"Oh, uh, yeah, I remember," she covered.

"Well, she was the woman who I worked with on that case. I must commend her. She was quite the agent, prior to her retirement."

"She retired? But I thought she was in her late twenties."

"Indeed she was. Ironically, she was going to be wed to one of her colleagues from the FBI."

"Huh, that's interesting."

"Quite…" he paused for a moment as he clicked one last button on the new tab that he had pulled up onto the screen. "There, I sent a copy of the file to the printer on your floor. You know where that is, correct?"

"Yep."

"Perfect. Well, I hate to interrupt this conversation, but I have something to get back to."

"Oh, no problem. I guess I'll see you tomorrow."

"Of course. Happy reading," he regarded, his gaze sucked back into the bright sheen of the desktop in front of him.

The next morning, the entire building seemed pretty lazy. Due to the great work on the case that the NPA had solved, the task force involved was given a few days off. Due to that, none of the people in the building were in a rush to get to work, no body was in a rush to finish a report, and most everything was quiet.

"What the hell did you two do?" Dagas exclaimed in the middle of Matt's bedroom. On the bed, Matt and Mello both lay sprawled out with their hair messy as ever and most of the bed sheets kicked off the edge. Having no recollection of the night before, the two had no clue what Dagas could possibly be yelling about.

"Ah, could you scream any louder?" Mello complained, his right hand placed on his aching head.

"Uhg, why won't the sun turn off?" Matt groaned with his face masked by the pillow that he clutched over his head.

"Oh my god, let me guess, you two have no clue what happened last night?"

"Well, I have no clue, but I'd think this killer hangover would say otherwise," Mello replied.

"God, how much did we drink last night?" Matt sighed.

"Enough for you to say that you wanted me to go buy you a teddy bear," Dagas snarled, her hands placed firmly on her hips.

"Aw, damn!"

"Yeah."

"Ah… I need some water," Mello announced before unsteadily leaving his seat behind to walk into the kitchen.

"Did we say anything else?" Matt warily asked.

"Well, you and Mello were both rambling off about that guy B from Wammy's House for some reason."

"Whoa, we did what?" Matt exclaimed as his head shot out from under the pillow. At the first sight of the sunlight around him, he brought his hand up to his eyes and began to moan over his terrible headache.

"You two were talking about B. And by the way, no need to explain it all for me. I asked Ryuzaki about it last night and he printed out a copy of the case file for me."

"Oh man… Don't tell me you actually read that in the middle of the night."

"Yeah, I did."

"Wow, I'm surprised you aren't mentally scarred yet by the pictures of the bodies." He paused with a quick shudder. "Horrific, ain't it?"

"Oh yeah! You know, when Ryuzaki said he was crazy, I had no clue that the man was that crazy. Those murders were just plain terrible!"

"Yeah, that was my first reaction. When I first read that case, I remember I couldn't go back to sleep that night cause' I was so freaked out. It's like Saw all over again."

"Oh, come on! Saw is an awesome movie saga! Don't be such a wimp!" she scoffed.

"Wait, you actually like that series?"

"Of course! I found it to be quite intriguing. I love those kinds of movies."

He paused for a moment just to give Dagas a look of fear melded with a sense of disgust. His glare was soon interrupted by a short scream that came from the kitchen.

"Ah!" Matt said with his head in his hands. "What the hell was that?"

Immediately, Dagas jogged over to the other room to find Mello violently spitting into the sink.

"What's wrong? Why'd you scream?" she urgently demanded.

After wiping the spit off the corner of his mouth, Mello looked up and slowly stuttered, "I came here to get a drink of water and found gum in my mouth."

"So what? It's just gum. It isn't going to kill you."

"Yeah, but I don't chew gum… Dagas do you know what this is?" he unsteadily questioned.

"No, what?"

"…It's nicotine gum." Upon finishing his sentence, Mello marched over to the bathroom at the other end of the room.

"What're you doing?" Dagas urgently asked.

"I'm gonna go puke," he replied, breaking into a jog at the last second and slamming the door behind him.

"What was that about?" Matt asked once Dagas had come back into the other room.

"Um… Mello found some of your gum."

"What, did I leave some on the counter?"

"Uh… let's just say you two probably won't be on speaking terms for a while."

"Wait, what does that mean?"

Feeling the awkwardness in the room, Dagas made her way to the front door and left the room before Matt could ever finish his sentence.

After leaving she figured it would be best to take in the rest of the day like it was her last. After all, she only did have three days off. Why not make the most of the time she had? At first she considered getting some new music off of one of her favorite sites, but before she could reach the laptop on her desk, she caught a glance of the case file still on her desk from last night. With an unavoidable pang of dystopia floating through her mind as she looked down at the papers, she gave up on the music and instead grabbed a jacket, her iPod, a wad of cash and a good book by her favorite author. Instead of her original plan, she decided to go out into town to go get a drink and read her book at her favorite café. Sure, some might call this boring, but to her, this was her idea of pure relaxation.

"Morning," she greeted L as she got to the bottom floor.

"Not for much longer," he said as he looked down at the clock in the lower right corner of his computer screen. "Where are you heading off to?" he asked as he noted her attire.

"Café again. Gonna go read my book that I haven't gotten a chance to read in about a month."

"Well doesn't that sound like fun," he replied. "If I didn't have my work, I might have just gone with you. I do apologize for that."

"Oh, I completely understand. Being L isn't a walk in the park. But I do wanna take you with me sometime. I think you'd like the place."

"Well, I guess I will have to tag along some time… Well have a good time," he replied.

"See yah!"

With that, Dagas was out the door, a spring in her step as she walked along and marveled at the signs of late summer flying by. For a while, she walked along the street, her hard cover book clutched in her arms and her eyes instinctively drawn to the people around her.

For years, she had been an impulsive people watcher. It's not that she was some sort of stalker, but it was that she always found amusement in watching the people around her going about her daily lives. As a child in middle school, she had created a ranking system for social classes. All of the system had been developed simply by listening to what people had to say and what they do. Of course, it's not hard to see that Goths will typically wear black and scowl at ass holes of a higher class, or that populars will talk about cheer leading, makeup and guys. These easy to spot aspects build up the entire system that puts everyone on this good earth in their own social class. Happy to know exactly where she stands, Dagas forgets about her class and observes those of another kind and simply smiles at most people's sheer stupidity.

While observing a group of people loitering by a bike rack in front of a convenience store, Dagas paused for a moment to take another glace down at the book that she clasped in her arms; Split Second. In certain ways, she found the book reminding her of herself every now and again. In a story about outcasts with talents that the police aren't aware of, she would fit right in as a main character.

While marveling down at this book that she held so dear to her book loving heart, she found herself accidentally bumping into someone who seemed to have been foolishly looking down at their own feet. Upon impact, the two both fell backwards, both of them catching their falls before making a painful encounter with the rock hard sidewalk.

"Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry! I wasn't looking where I was going!" Dagas apologized as she propped herself back onto her feet.

"Oh, it was a fault of mine as well," said an oddly familiar voice.

As Dagas took a good look at the man standing in front of her wiping the dust off his arm, she found herself staring at the face of Ryuzaki whom she though had said he needed to work.

"Oh, Ryuzaki!"

The man immediately seemed ready to jump out of his skin at the sound of his name.

"I thought you said you needed to hang back to work on something today. What a surprise this is," she said with a smile.

"Oh, uh, well I finished just as you left so I thought I would go on my own and try to find you," he replied as his gaze was slowly drawn to the air above her head.

"Well that's pretty ironic. Say, you look kinda different today. Are you okay?"

"Uh, sure. I'm fine, really," he said, his eyes still locked on the space above her head.

"No, you seriously don't look like yourself. Is something up? You look a little sick," she insisted as she took a step closer to him.

Immediately the man hopped one step backwards before providing an answer. "Don't be silly, I'm perfectly fine."

"You sure? 'Cause I…" she paused for a second to look him square in the eye. "You're not Ryuzaki."

"What? What on earth would make you say that? Of course I'm Ryuzaki, what on earth would make you think otherwise?"

"I dunno… there's just something up about you that I don't like…"

"What? Don't be absurd, uh, Alex…" he stuttered out. _Damn! Why the hell did I say that?_ He mentally scolded himself, a hopeful smile creasing across his face.

"Whoa, you've never called me Alex before! I doubt anybody ever has in yea…" she paused as she took another long look at the man's timid face. Sure, it looked a lot like Ryuzaki, and he acted like him too, but there was something wrong with this. Something horribly wrong which Dagas wished she didn't have to know. "No, there's no possible way you're Ryuzaki. I don't care who the hell you are, but I know you're not him!" she said, her fists clenched and her eyes holding all the uncertainty in the world.

"Now what on earth would make you say that?"

Without a moment's hesitation, she swiftly brought her finger up to the man's eye and smeared a charcoal like substance all the way down his left cheek. Holding her finger up so that the mysterious imposter could see the results, she bluntly replied, "Ryuzaki doesn't wear makeup."

For a few moments, the man stood wide eyed in his place, trying to fathom what had just occurred. Regaining his grounds, the man looked back from her to the grey substance on her finger, and immediately made a break for it. With no time to waist, Dagas clamped her book as tight as possible and sped ahead to catch up with the man. For a short while she chased him down the street, shoving past hoards of people just to keep the man in her sights. As per the man's planned escape if something were to go wrong, Dagas soon lost him in a speed of ongoing traffic at the end of the block.

"Damnit!" she cried loud enough for people to stare and for worried mother's to cover their child's tiny ears. "Who the hell was that guy?" she scowled under her breath. "He looks like Ryuzaki, talks like him, has the same posture as him, and ran from me when I knew it wasn't the real thing…" she angrily thought. "Aw man, this has gotta be a dream! I have to be dreaming! If it's not, then that means…" She took a moment to look down at her smudged finger which had been stained by a mere attempt at shading in L's bags left behind by lack of sleep. "Goddamn… It's gotta be him…"

About a half an hour jog later, Dagas arrived back at the building more tired and frantic than she ever thought she could be.

"Dude! Shit just went down!" Dagas wailed as she stormed into the room.

"Seriously, could you keep it down?" Matt asked as he took a sip of his coffee.

"No I can't! Oh my god! I don't know if I'm dead, you're dead," she pointed at Ryuzaki. "or if we're all as good as dead, but I just saw something that I wish I hadn't!"

"Could you please try to control yourself, Dagas? Panicking will get us nowhere," L pointed out. "Now try to calmly tell us what happened."

"I saw B! There's no other explanation! I saw him!" she exclaimed with her hands flying into the air.

Immediately, Matt began to burst into hysterical laughter. Beside him, L began to spread a slight grin across his face as he mused at this display.

"What's so funny?"

"Seriously Dagas? You are terrible at pranks!" Matt clarified.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Really, you read the case file that I gave you last night and now you're trying to tell us that you saw an incarcerated criminal on the streets? If you were trying to scare us, then you're doing a poor job at it."

"Yeah, Dag'. What do you take us for?" Mello commented from one of the sofas, his head leaned back with an ice pack pressed against it.

"I take you for ass holes who won't believe me!"

Well, if you can prove this then fine, go ahead. Make our day and give us your proof," Matt taunted with a devious smile.

Holding out her right index finger pointed out with the pad facing up, she snarled, "Here's my goddamn proof!"

Curiously, all three of them came closer to observe what had been left on her finger.

"What's that? Did you rub your finger on some blacktop?" Mello asked.

"No… this is his eyeliner… He said he was Ryuzaki, he looked exactly like Ryuzaki, and for some reason, he knew my real name…" she stuttered out, her hand beginning to shake as the fear started to really set in.

With wide eyes and his heart nearly beating out of his chest, L looked down at the smudged finger as thousands of unnerving thoughts began racing through his mind. Loosing control of all rational thinking, he shuddered and plummeted from his chair to the floor, leaving the three fearfully frantic and panicked at this newest event. For one of the first times since Kira's death, L had almost literally been scared to death.


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

"Crap, he's not waking up yet," Mello fearfully sighed, his worried gaze still directed at L's pale face.

"Well, does he still have a pulse?" Matt asked.

"Yeah, but it's a pretty fast pulse. I think all he did was scare himself unconscious. I would love to say that this is nothing to worry about, but I know I could be wrong."

"Damn… did what I say seriously scare him unconscious?" Dagas nervously asked.

"Yeah, and for what you said, I'm not surprised at all," Matt concluded.

"Do you have any idea what could have scared him like this?" Dagas asked.

"Well, it could be a number of things; he could think that B is back to take L's place, he could have thought that B is here to kill more victims, or, the most likely reason, he could have thought that B broke out to exact some sort of revenge on him. Personally, if I were him, I would have freaked out simply due to the fact that B actually broke out," Mello stated, his gaze firmly locked on L's unusually closed eyes.

"So basically, for what ever reason B broke out for, it can't be a good outcome?"

"Well, it's not like he was relieved of his life sentence for brutally killing three innocent people and almost killing himself. You'd have to be mentally ill to let someone like B out of that prison cell," Matt clarified.

"Good point…"

"Okay, that's it! He's taking too long to wake up! I'm going to go get some water," Mello said as he stomped away, an impatient look burrowing into his eyes. With no one feeling a need to stop him, Mello came back with a full glass of water in his hand. Impulsively and without any sort of warning, he dumped the entire glass of water directly onto L's face.

Immediately, L's eyes reopened with a shocked look forming on his sopping wet face. Confused beyond compare, he shot his head up from where he lay and looked around at his surroundings, carefully making sure he was in the same building as he was before he blacked out.

"What just happened?" he asked, his wide eyes still rapidly looking about the room.

"You probably had some sort of panic attack and collapsed about a half an hour ago," Matt said.

"Oh my…" he paused as he stressfully rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I was out for that long?"

"Give or take a few minutes, but yeah," Matt replied.

"Dear lord…" he sighed. "Dagas, are you sure the man you saw was B? I need to know if you're absolutely positive or not."

"Well, he freaked when I called him Ryuzaki, he couldn't calmly hold up his end of the conversation, he looked just like you, and he ran from me when I smeared his eyeliner, so yeah, I'm pretty damn sure it was him."

"Oh god," he groaned, his hands now covering his face which was getting paler by the second. _Why in the world would he have escaped? _L began to silently think. _Obviously there are far too many answers to that question, but only one could be true…_

"Ryuzaki, are you alright? You might need to lie down for a second after such a major panic attack," Matt fearfully suggested.

For a while, the room was silent. Three of the four were majorly concerned while L was wracking his mind over what he could possibly do about this horrible predicament.

"All of you, I need you to do something for me immediately," L demanded. "Since you all have the closer connection to the NPA, I need you to go to the office and get all of the recorded calls taken in the past month. Reported murders, 911 calls, it doesn't matter, just make sure to get them all."

"What? We can't do that!" Matt opposed. "That could get us fired for getting involved in cases that aren't our own!"

"Trust me, they'll never fire you for something like that, I can make sure of it."

"But what if someone questions us about being there on our day off? A lot of people are gonna notice that," Mello stated.

"Make up some sort of excuse. I don't care what you do about it, but I need this done as soon as possible," L urgently stated.

"Of course," Matt said after a long pause. "We'll have it done in an hour at the most."

"Thank you," L said, his head sagging down in relief.

"Here," Dagas said to him before leaving. Before saying another word, she dropped a bath towel onto L's head. He flinched upon impact, but calmed himself as he looked up to see Dagas turn around and head towards the front door.

Unfortunately for Mello, he still had too bad of a raging headache to be able to come, so he stayed behind. Leaving Mello to keep an eye on L, Matt and Dagas drove to the office to go get the recordings. By the time they got to the office, it was about 2 o'clock and the entire office was either bustling with people frantically working on cases or people quickly trying to finish their late lunches. The two got stopped a few times by some immature cops feeling they needed to harass them about their ages, but these hurtful comments easily rolled right off their backs.

By the time they arrived in the office with the recorded phone calls, all of the people who were on duty were all eating lunch accept for one man who had dozed off until the next phone call came in. This situation made it easy for Matt and Dagas to quickly retrieve the recorded calls, put them on Matt's laptop, and leave without being scolded or harassed by their coworkers.

As Matt had predicted, the two returned in record time at about 3 o'clock. Immediately after Matt presented the recordings, L told him to split them up into three groups so that each of them could go through a third of the effort of finding the right call. For a good couple of hours, Matt, Mello and Dagas went through the tapes, occasionally hearing the weirdest reports of things like poltergeist murders or a dog kidnapping someone's son or a reported alien attack on a day where there was a small parade that involved silver balloons. Report after report went by, and still nothing came up. Most of the reports were the same; either it was something about a clue in a murder or someone reporting the location of a drug dealer. Nothing truly interesting came up until after Mello heard a report called in from a pay phone not too far outside of the west side of Tokyo. The man on the phone had been frantically asking questions about Naomi Misora and where she may be. The man at the NPA office had told him that Misora had been killed by Kira, which greatly upset the caller who furiously hung up after hearing the tragic news. This was obviously the call that they were looking for.

"Hey guys!" Mello called out. "I think I've found our call!"

Immediately after Mello said this, L sprang up out of his seat and lunged onto the sofa that sat across from where Mello sat.

"What's it say and where's the call from?" L quickly asked.

"I'll play it back for you. And this call came from a pay phone just outside the west side of Tokyo." With everybody gathered around the computer, Mello played back the call which innocently started with a few questions and furiously ended with the caller slamming the phone down onto the receiver.

"There's no doubt that that was B. His voice may have changed a bit since the last time I heard from him, but that is most certainly him," L concluded.

"Well, so what? We know it's him, so now what do we do? Just sit around until he makes his next move?" Matt questioned.

"He's right, we can't really get to far in this with only a phone call to go by," Dagas added.

"Not necessarily. It is true that we can't get too far with just this call…" L stated. "However, if we had something else to help us along, then we may just be able to find his possible location…"

There was a brief silence in the room before Mello asked in pure amazement at how far L's abilities could go, "Wait, are you saying that you actually know where he is?"

"Not exactly. I do have a method to find out where he is, so we should find out where he is going to be within the next few hours or so."

"How could you find that in the next few hours?" Matt asked.

"Well, if he's still anything like he was before he was put behind bars, then he should have the common sense to know that the second you tell me you saw him, we're going to be on his tail until we find him. Due to that, he would be leaving the Tokyo area as soon as possible. Not so soon that it would seem like a daring escape that we're instantly going to spot, but soon enough so that he's out of the Tokyo area by midnight. Assuming that he's taking a flight to wherever he's going, I'm having all of the airports in the Kanto region constantly feeding me the information of all of the people who are getting on flights today. Knowing the kind of person he is, I should be able to figure out his alias as soon as I see it. Once we find that, we've got a lock on his location."

"Wow, sounds complicated," Dagas said.

"Not really, although, it is quite time consuming."

"Ah, I see."

"So where do you think he may be going?" Mello asked.

"Well, there's no telling where just yet. He could be leaving the region, the country, or Asia all together. My guess is that he's going somewhere outside of the country. I can't exactly imagine him staying in Asia either, but we'll just have to wait and see to figure that out."

"Huh… Wonder if he's going to Russia," Dagas thought out loud.

"Why Russia?" Matt asked.

"I dunno… I just thought it would be interesting if he went there…"

"Hmm… interesting thought," Matt replied before looking away from her as if he felt she was totally bonkers. Though, he was just as insane as her, so he would have been a fine one to talk.

After about two hours of L observing the passengers on specific flights, he finally found a few matches that may have been B. There was a list of about thirty people who could fit the bill. After a bit of digging, about ten of them were found to have come with family members such as parents and children, so that group was opted out. Nine more were later opted out after being found to be certified Russian, Chinese or Korean citizens. After a little bit more digging for the next hour, the list was narrowed down to five people. One was listed as a 65 year old Hawaiian getting a direct flight back to Hawaii. The second man was listed as a 32 year old guy from Canada who was getting on a direct flight to Michigan. Another was listed as a Polish 38 year old getting a flight to one of Poland's neighboring countries, Belarus. The fourth was listed as a 29 year old from Virginia who was taking a pit stop in New York City. And the last was listed as a 53 year old from Cuba who was flying to Jamaica before returning home.

After a long while, L finally narrowed it down to the last person on the list. With the information that was given and the fact that his name didn't show up on any records in all of Virginia, the only man left was the man flying to New York City. For a little while, L almost couldn't believe this. _Why would B go to New York City?_ he asked himself. To double check, he checked the security cameras directed at that flight's dock. It was true; B was currently on a flight to New York. A strange location for him to go, but he was there anyways. And as B changed his location, so would this case that had just begun.

"Alright everyone, start packing your things," L announced after confirming all of his suspicions. Without an explanation, the rest of the people in the room became slightly confused at L's sudden command. "Now that we have a lock on B's location, we'll be changing ours."

"Wait, where are we going?" Mello asked as L stepped out of his seat and began to head up the stairs.

"Check the desktop," he replied before leaving the room.

The next day, Dagas was sent to the NPA office to go announce their unexpected leaving to their boss. Sadly, Mello has a horribly hot temper and Matt isn't that good with negotiations, so Dagas was sent to negotiate with her useful skills.

"You're all going to America? For how long?" the NPA director demanded.

"We don't know. Quite some time, I'm assuming," Dagas replied.

"Well what is it that requires so much of your time?"

"An extremely important case which has become our highest priority as of yesterday."

"But you three are some of the best people I've had in years on the force! Can't some other detective take care of this?"

"I'm afraid not, sir. This is a case specifically for our other boss, and as we stated before we started work on the force, if he requires us for a case then working for him is our only priority. Please understand, sir, that we need to go with him on this case no matter what happens here."

The director stressfully placed his fingers on his left temple before continuing on with an answer. "Will I be expecting this kind of predicament to come up often?" he sighed.

"I'm afraid so, sir."

He sighed again. "Well, if it's for something beyond just this little country, then I guess it doesn't matter to me where you go… What the hell, go ahead. Just don't get killed out there. I don't want my best detectives coming back to Japan in coffins."

"Much obliged, sir," she said before respectfully bowing forward in thanks for his decision. "Have a good day, sir."

"You too, miss," he replied as she walked out the door.

Within two hours after Dagas' return, the four of them all had arrived at the airport, ready for their flight. Sure, the flight was long being that it was a direct flight to a country none of them had been to within the course of over a year, but it was worth it to start a new case in the magnificent New York City; the legendary city that never sleeps.

"So, what do you want us to do with that?" a large man asked as the scrawny man in front of him held out a huge wad of cash.

"I'd like you to help me with something."

"Like what? You need furniture moved? You need a guy to be taught a lesson? Come on, you gotta give me some rope, here!"

"I need someone dead, but not in the way that I know you're thinking of."

"So, how do you want em' dead? Strangled? Maimed? Stabbed? What?"

"Slowly and painfully… but I can't have you be the one who gets the credit. See, for this amount of base pay plus an annual pay day, I expect you and your men to work under me until I see this man dead."

"Yeah, and who says we're gonna work for you, scrawny? You don't even look like you could kill a fuckin' dog!"

"Oh contraire, my good man. You see, I have killed many before this man, and if you try to strike me down, I will not hesitate to kill every last one of you here, Mr. Michael Harps," the man threatened as his eyes flashed red for a slight moment in time.

"Whoa, how'd you know my name!" the man cried. "Nobody here knows that name but me!"

"Well, not anymore," he scoffed. Switching in a bipolar fashion from calm to a complete psychopath, the scrawny man lunged himself at Harps, sending him slamming to the blacktop pavement surrounding the thug infested street. With one hard pull, the scrawny man pulled Harps up and slammed him against the closest wall in the alley. Once he was pinned, the scrawny man pulled a red Swiss army knife out from his black shirt sleeve, unsheathed it, and held the sharp end of the knife up to Harps' bulky neck, hovering the edge right over one of the man's vital arteries.

"I don't play games with people like you, Michael. And truthfully, this is just getting old. Now let me say this again, you will work with me or I will cut you up into chunks that even Jack the Ripper himself would find hard to look at…" he paused in his threat to look Harps straight in the eye with his glowing red eyes that seemed as bright as laser pointers in the darkness of the night. "Understand?" he asked as he brought the knife up to the man's skin, leaving a shallow crease in the man's tan neck.

"Y-yeah… We'll do it. Just please don't kill me, man!" he pleaded.

"Wise decision, Michael. Wise decision," the scrawny man said as he pulled himself off of Harps and let him drop to the ground. "Now, do we have any questions?" he asked as he held out the unsheathed pocket knife to the side.

The rest of the men in the alley were silent.

"Good… With a group like you, this should be fun," he said as he put away the knife. "Let's get going."


	4. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

"This is not good… not good at all. Oh, why the hell did I agree to this? We're all going to be dead by midnight! This was a huge mistake! What're we going to do? We're bound to slip up. He's just waiting for that to happen so he can finish us all off! What the hell was I thinking?"  
>"Hey, I hate to break it to you, but you're frustration is burning a freaking hole in the back of my head. Just calm down for at least a second, would yah?" Mello complained.<p>

"Oh, I apologize," L nervously apologized with his thumb nail still under the intense pressure of his grinding teeth.

"No need, I just don't want you stressing so much about this on our first day here. Just relax for a bit and enjoy the town. This is a fantastic place to be and none of us want you to be like this," Mello replied, a concerned look in his eyes.

"I know… I just can't help worrying about this."

"Yeah, you can help it. Now just calm down already."

L had nothing to say to this.

At the moment, it was about 1:30 in the morning. The investigation, after about a 14 hour flight, had set foot in the big apple of New York City. Since L had booked this agonizingly long flight late in the airport's schedule, all four of them had been stuck sitting next to the strangest of people. Matt was stuck next to a fat New Yorker who kept ranting to Matt and the person on the opposite side of himself about the Yankees and fast food. Mello was stuck sitting next to a gay guy who kept asking him where he got his clothes and how he does his hair. These were both foolish questions being the fact that Mello hardly knew where Dagas had bought the tight fitting disguise he was wearing and the only thing he had done with his hair is pull it up into a pony tail and brush his bangs to the side to cover the parts of his right eye that couldn't be covered with makeup to cover his scar. Dagas was placed next to a die hard goth kid whom she had ended up discussing hair styles, dark nail polish, bands like My Chemical Romance, and the activities of society with for most of the flight. L was a row across from Dagas and was placed next to the goth kid's parents who wouldn't stop arguing about each other and their son until the wife finally fell asleep at 9:30. Sadly enough, L couldn't get any of his work done to prepare for this case with the two parents sitting next to him which became another cause of his stress once the plane had landed.

Though a long and stressful flight, the four had made it out alive and well and were ready to start the new case ahead. So at 1:30 in the morning, the four were standing anxiously at baggage claim, hopping that all of their things had made it with them unharmed. All together, the total baggage count was 12 bags, so they would be waiting for quite a while in that same spot. As if waiting for one bag wasn't long enough.

By 2:15, all of their bags had been retrieved with everything still in place. Not a charge cord out of place, not a paper torn, not a disguise bearing extra fingerprints. For the next five minutes, the four stood in front of the airport as Mello struggled to hail a cab. The way he executed this, some passers by assumed that he was a natural born pissy New Yorker himself. True, some people would think that trying to hail down a cab for five minutes straight would be ridiculous, but that thought only truly applies if you're in Washington D.C. In this town, you'd be lucky to get a cab within twenty minutes. No, to get a cab this fast, you've gotta be loud, forceful, and know the right tricks to get the cab driver's attention.

"Where to?" the driver asked once they had all piled in with all their things.

"Holiday Inn on 5th," L immediately replied.

"Alright then, I'll have you there in 15 minutes," the driver replied in a thick New York accent as he pulled away from the curb. "So where're yah from?"

Before anybody could even consider an excuse, Matt immediately replied in a laid back tone, "Ah, we're taking a vacation from Cleveland."

"Huh, yah know, I've never been able to go there before. How is it?"

"Musty, always under construction and it's got bad local art," Dagas replied in a mild groan.

"Hah, I guess I'm not going there for my next break," the man chuckled.

"I guess not," Matt replied.

"So are you guys' friends, neighbors, family?"

"College room mates."

"No way. What're yah studying?"

"Politics and such."

"Uhg, God only knows how bad we need better politicians!"

"Yeah, no kidding."

For about the rest of the cab ride, the driver, unlike most Mexican drivers who stay silent, occasionally placed some small commentary every few seconds. Most people would appreciate their cab driver staying silent, but in this case, this was the perfect opportunity to observe the behavior of an average New Yorker. Although, as opposed to the friendliness of this man, it had to be kept in mind that a lot of the people in this big City were nothing like him. Yep, if you were to find any place that held picky, cynical ass holes around every block, this would be the place.

By the time they reached 5th avenue, there was a pile up of cars in front of the hotel which were only there due to the massive club across the street which had run out of parking spaces. Because of this, the cab driver was forced to drop his talkative passengers a block and a half away from their destination. A minor set back, but this guaranteed more observations of the local people.

Walking down the street about half way down the second block, just a few feet away from the hotel, the four were halted by several waves of people walking away from the club across the street. Some were drunk, some were still buzzing from the vibes of the club, and others were partied out from dancing and drinking till quarter to 3:00. Although the waves weren't all too big, the stumbling party-goers were forceful and had a knack for nearly pushing others on the sidewalk into walls or the edge of the curb. The four were often stopped every other slow step which began to become quite frustrating. In an act of impatience, Mello forcefully decided to break out of the thick barriers of the masses to get to the front of the hotel. This obviously wasn't the best idea, which he found out the second he barreled into a blond bimbo who didn't seem all too happy with the unexpected encounter.

"What the hell was that, bitch?" the woman snarled as she hiked up her hot pink tube top which had rolled down about an inch or two upon impact.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to run into you," Mello apologized as he picked up his shoulder bag that had fallen off his shoulder perch.

"Naw, you soooo meant to do that! What the hell is your deal, dumb ass? Huh? What's you're problem?" the woman barked at him, her face getting up to his, her finger prodding his chest and the strong smell of alcohol wafting off her breath with every word she yelled at him.

"Listen, bitch! You better back off before I teach you the meaning of having a problem!" Mello snarled back at the woman, her hand now being crushed by the force of Mello's malicious grip.

"Hey man, back off!" Matt yelled at his furious companion as he came forward and held back Mello's arms away from the drunken whore.

Knowing he had to give up this pointless argument, Mello loosened his tensed muscles and shot Matt a distressed sigh as his arms were released.

"Yeah, that's right, walk away and never come back, yah son of a bitch!" the blond called back as the group filed into the hotel.

"Damnit, why the hell did you do that?" Mello snarled with a seething resentment in his tone.

"You were about to start a pointless squabble that would most likely lead to an unwanted trip to the police station, and I'd rather avoid that, wouldn't you?" L replied, a disgusted glare pointed at Mello's tensed face.

He sighed and loosened his fist. "Yeah, but I still could have taught her a lesson."

"The law enforcement system will do that for you eventually, I'm sure," Matt replied.

Once inside the hotel, L asked for four separate rooms on the same floor. Luckily, this wasn't one of their busy weeks, so they got the rooms that they needed. Once inside their own small rooms, everybody unpacked what they could, climbed out of their strange disguises and put on more suitable clothes. Leading after this, Matt, Mello, and Dagas all passed out by 3:20 in the morning. Sad as it was, L was forced to stay awake until 4:45 to look for any leads to B's location. After that, for one of the rare times in a month, out of stress and a sever lack of energy, L passed out for one of his long power naps.

By nine in the morning, just about everybody in the hotel was awake and ready to start a new day. With the new morning light shining down on the city, it was clearly easier to see how crowded the streets were the entire day. Some people were bustling to work by foot, and others were wasting their time to take a cab during morning rush hour. An interesting sight to see on your first day in the huge City.

"Hey," Matt greeted Dagas who was shuffling down the hall in a daze.

"Hmm, 'morning," she replied as she rubbed her eye with a bunched up fist. Looking at what his hands were filled with, Dagas questioned, "What's with all the food?"

"They got a complimentary breakfast downstairs. I got you something while I was in the lobby," Matt said as he handed her a blueberry buttered bagel and a lemon poppy seed muffin.

"Aw… finally, I've met a man who actually listens when I say things," she said humorously as she looked down at two of her favorite breakfast foods.

"Yeah, it's pretty hard to find people like me now a days," he gloated.

"Yeah, takes one to know one," Dagas scoffed.

"Touché, mademoiselle!"

"Damnit, don't speak Spanish to me right after I wake up," she drowsily demanded.

"Heh, okay then," he scoffed with an amused smile.

"That for Ryuzaki?" Dagas asked as she looked down at the plastic plate holding two sugary doughnuts and a couple complimentary candies from the front desk.

"Aw, how'd you guess?" he said sarcastically.

"You might wanna give that to him soon. When I woke up earlier, I tried to see if he had found anything on the case last night and… well, I think he was asleep."

"Good, after how nervous he was at the airport he deserved that sleep. No person should have to stress the way he did last night."

"True that."

"Stress about what?" L asked as he immerged from his room, refreshed and ready for most anything.

"Being here last night. We were just talking about how you needed that sleep you got last night," Matt said as he politely handed L the Styrofoam plate in his hand.

"Oh, thank you. And you are right, that sleep did help me to pull myself together," he admitted.

"Well that's good to know. So, is anything going on today?" Dagas asked.

"Actually, I do have something for you three to do today."

"What would that be?"

"It's true that the internet provides fantastic answers to many things, although they don't give a full in depth description of human behavior related to region. Simply put, all I want you three to do is go around the town and observe the behavior and activities of the average New Yorker."

"So, does this mean that we can just walk around and go where ever we want?" Matt asked.

"As long as you're keeping visual, then yes."

"Well that sounds like a hell of a fun time," Dagas said.

"Yeah, if we're not recognized," Mello said as he leaned on the door frame of his open door.

"By who? B? It's not like he's looking for us. We're the ones who're looking for him," Dagas said.

"True, but I'm referring to other things, such as street cameras that could pick up a picture of one of us and put it on a conveniently recorded tape."

"Well, that's nothing we need to worry about at the moment. Although, I would put on a disguise, if I were one of you, just to be safe," L replied as he took a bite of his glazed doughnut.

"We'll make sure to keep that in mind," Mello replied.

"Alright then, good luck with that. You have no specific time frame, so just take your time to note everything that you observe," L said as he walked back into his room and closed the door.

"Kay," Dagas replied.

"So, what're we doing?" Mello asked.

"Wow, you put in this foreshadowing commentary and yet you don't even know what's going on… real smart," Matt sarcastically scoffed.

"What ever… so, we're going out into town?"

"Yep, we gotta go observe the people of New York and learn how to blend in with them so we don't seem like such out casts," Dagas said.

"Well, doesn't that sound interesting…? Can't wait to start!" Mello exclaimed as he glided back into his room to prepare a disguise for the rest of the day.

Once the three had all finished remaking their images beyond recognition, they left the hotel and migrated to Central Park, each with full notepads, two pens and enough money to last 24 hours in the city. Once there, they agreed to meet back up at that same spot at 5 o'clock sharp. If either one was more than ten minutes late, this meant that something was wrong. Once the arrangements were made, the three split up to different sides of the city; Mello took to the subway stations to observe the activity under ground. For the entire day, he planned on going back and forth from the seats in the under ground stations to the different trams that ran non stop all day and all night. Matt planned on checking out the atmosphere in the establishments around the area. He would stop at Cafes, department stores, clubs; basically anywhere with people. Dagas decided to take things the harder way and loom about the parks and busy streets in the area. Any where she would go would most likely be packed, and that's exactly what she was hoping for. At the end of the day, the three would compile all of their notes taken throughout the day and make a full analysis of the people of the big apple.

By about 12 o'clock, things were going quite smoothly. The people of New York, with their unique personalities, were pretty easy to describe and categorize off the top of one's head, so this made their jobs pretty easy. But there were still five hours of observation left, and those hours were not very easily filled.

On Dagas' side of things, her observations were difficult to put on paper, especially with the uniqueness of the people around her, and her bad hand writing wasn't helping all that much either. But, never the less, she was making great time with her discoveries on the locals. At one point, while making observations on Queens Boulevard, Dagas found herself in a whole mess of ongoing traffic up and down the sidewalks. It was quite hard to see much of anything through the thick layers of rushing people; all that could be seen from beyond the people were the taxis putting down the road and crowded stores crammed onto the edge of the block.

Wile stuck in the thick traffic, many people were in such a rush that they would shove people in their way to the side to get where they needed to go. Due to this, Dagas soon found herself being shoved in all directions. Panicking at the massive traffic, she clutched onto her notebook and two pens as she was thrashed about the street. As more people shoved, the less she seemed to need to use her feet to propel herself forward. This came to a point where she was eventually violently shoved into the next person in front of her, sending the other person, herself, and a group of other people to the ground like a row of dominos. As the two causes of the commotion fell to the ground, Dagas dropped her observation notebook and pens while the girl she ran into dropped a large sketch book and several pencils and erasers.

As Dagas regained her boundaries, she picked up the first notebook she could find and flipped through it to see if it was hers. Inside this notebook were none of her notes, but instead an array of beautifully crafted, hand sketched art work that you would think could bring sight to a blind man. Realizing this was the other person's notebook, Dagas looked up to look the artist in the eye. What she saw was nothing she would have ever expected. The girl before her was a skinny thing wearing all black clothing aside from her black and red striped gloves that came up to her elbows. Black boots, black shirt, black jeans, black nail polish! Atop her head lay a tied up clump of wavy black hair with yellowish streaks running through several small clumps surrounding the blackness. Her nose was slightly bigger than most and pointed straight down as opposed to most noses that would curve a bit at the tip. The vibes that she gave off gave you a sense of friendliness and serenity as you stared into her brown eyes. Observing all of these features, Dagas soon realized who she had just come in contact with.

"I'm so sorry I bumped into you. Here's your notebook and pens back," the girl nervously apologized as she handed Dagas the notebook.

"Oh my god…" Dagas whispered under her breath.

"Oh crap, please don't be the third person to bitch out at me today. I said I was sorry!" she pleaded.

"I can't believe this… it's you…" she stuttered.

"Seriously, I don't have time for this, I've gotta be somewhere," she urgently said as she picked her supplies off the ground and began to walk forward. Before she could make her way away from the destruction behind her, Dagas grabbed hold of her wrist and refused to let it go.

"Ah! What is wrong with you?" she gasped as her thin body swiveled around to look back at Dagas.

"Josie…?"

"Wha- how the hell do you know my name?"

"Oh my god, it is you! I haven't seen you in ages!" Dagas exclaimed as she looked back at Josie with tears forming in her eyes.

"What the… who the hell are you?"

"Josie… it's me… Alex…"

There was a long pause before anything was said. For the next few seconds, all they could do was stair at each other's blood shot eyes. From middle school to the time that Dagas had split town, this was one of the people in her world who she could consider a best friend. When Dagas had been reported dead after a three month search, Josie was in one of the groups of people who had mourned her the most. For the past five years, Josie had thought the girl standing before her had been dead. This assumption was now proven false.

After Dagas had let her grip go on Josie's arm, the blackened artist came forward and gave Dagas one of the warmest hugs she had given in the past years.

"Oh my god! I can't believe this! Is this really you? I thought you were dead!" Josie cried as she pulled herself away to get a good look at Dagas' unfamiliar face.

"Hey, come on. Gimme a little credit here. Did you actually think I would die after three months? Please! It'd take at least a half a year to kill me off!" she joked with a joyous smile spread across her face.

"Haha! No kidding! Oh my god… You're alive! Y-you're, you're here! Of all the places!" she exclaimed as she looked over her long lost friend. "Damn, life has been treating you well!"

"More than you think, I can tell you that!"

"Oh my god, you know what, I was going to go to a coffee shop to go sketch. You have to come with me! Drinks are on me!"

"Well, that's nice of you bu…" she paused in her sentence to reconsider what she was about to say. "You know what, I've got until five. Let's do it!"

And as those words were said, Josie's eyes lit up with a joy that is simply indescribably by any human in existence.


	5. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

"So I see you're still using sharpie to color your hair. I had no clue that you would stick with that for so long," Dagas commented, referring to the fading bright yellow streaks flowing through Josie's dark hair.

"Well it's not like it damages my hair, and let me tell you now, sharpie costs a hell of a lot less than getting hair dye in a salon. I swear to god, those beauty parlors find any way possible to suck all the money out of your pockets," Josie pointed out.

"Isn't every establishment in New York like that?"

"Not exactly. There are some places around town that will give you some great deals on everything, but you gotta look pretty hard to find the right places."

"Huh, you don't say."

"Yeah," she said before being slightly startled by the Starbucks cashier announcing their order.

"Alright, you ordered the medium mocha Frappuchino and the English muffin?" the cashier asked Josie.

"Yep!"

"And you had the large mint chip Frappuchino and the blueberry muffin?"

"That's me. Thanks!" Dagas said with a happy grin as she looked down at her frozen coffee drink.

"You two have a good day," said the blond cashier girl as she walked away to take another order.

"You too," Josie replied before taking a sip of the drink she clutched ever so carefully in both of her hands. "So, tell me, what are you doing in New York, why does it look like you brutally murdered your facial structure and why in the world are you still alive?" she questioned in a humorous way.

"Uh… well, it's kinda hard to explain why I'm here exactly, which also ties in with how my face looks." She was lying. It would have been the easiest thing for her to explain to Josie if it weren't for the fact that she was working under one of the most secretive man on the planet. There was no way she could explain anything without slipping in a lie here and there. "But I am alive for a pretty funky reason."

"Well? Spill!" she demanded as they took a seat at a table in the back of the café.

"Get this; after I left town, and I kid you not, I was sure I was a goner on my own. But that is if I was on my own. Do you remember in sixth and seventh grade when all we wanted to do was become Canadian hobos?"

"Oh my god, I do! That was so funny! What's that got to do with you running away?"

"You're not going to believe this, but I became a migrating hobo for the next two years!"

"Oh my god, no way! That is so cool! How was it?"

"Um… interesting. I basically tagged along with them until I could drive. I saved up as much cash as I could to get a license and a piece of crap car and I took off. You remember my aunt from California, right?"

"Yeah, that really cool aunt that you had! What about her?"

"Well, I planned to drive from Wyoming to LA to go find her, but when I got there I was told that she moved right back to Wisconsin once she heard I was dead!"

"Ow! Talk about horrible irony!" Josie commented.

"Yeah, no kidding! But anyways, I ended up living in a shed in the middle of LA for a while before I met a couple of new people who asked to live with me. I let them and now we're as tightly knit as a pair of skinny jeans," Dagas said with two of her fingers twisted together to symbolize her analogy.

"Wow, that's quite a story you've got there!" Josie marveled. "So who are these new chicks you've replaced me with?" she asked with sarcastic anger.

"Actually, they aren't "chicks" at all. They're two guys."

"Oh my god, you live with two guys?"

"Actually, I live with three guys," Dagas stated as she awkwardly rubbed the back of her head. "The two other ones had me move in with another friend of theirs and now I live with the three of them in a huge apartment complex."

"Aw! You lucky bitch! You live with three guys?" She cautiously looked around the room before asking, "Are they hot emo guys? Oh, at least tell me they're hot!"

"Hah! Well, I wouldn't exactly call them hot since they're my friends, and none of them are emo, but one of them does wear really tight clothes all the time. I guess you could call them hot, but it depends on your taste."

"You had me at tight clothes!" she exclaimed with a look on her face like she was about to faint. "Damn, I gotta meet these guys!" she said as she stood right up out of her seat.

"Oh, but all four of us are working on something important for uh… a college project, and we're supposed to meet up at five; no later, no sooner."

"Oh, in that case, what's the project for?"

"Uh, um…" she stuttered.

"Cm'on. Spit it out."

"Um…" she paused and reached down to pick up her notebook and pens from the floor. "We're studying the personalities of humans based on region, and we're taking notes on New York City. I've been walking around and noting my observations for the past two and a half-ish hours, but I haven't found all that much."

"Oh, well then give it here!" Josie demanded before snatching the notebook and one of Dagas' pens right out of her hand. Dagas, as panicked as she was by Josie just taking the notebook, decided to not say anything in the fear of letting something slip. For the next 45 minutes, Dagas sat and nervously sipped her coffee while watching Josie jot down as many things as she could think of off the top of her head, which seemed to be a vast list of things that even Dagas found hard to count. Once the list was complete, Josie clicked the pen tip back in, flipped the notebook to the page she started on, and handed the notebook back to Dagas who was amazed at all of the information Josie had collected by just living in the big City for so little time. All down the list were perfectly organized sections titled and organized by which part of town you would find the people. Under each title was a full, accurate description of each type of persons which, surprisingly enough actually did vary by which part of town you were in. And on top of all that, every last word was written in a legible, expertly written handwriting.

"Oh my god… Josie, this is incredible! I would probably be wandering around town all day just to get half of this!" Dagas commended with a joyful smile.

"Well, when you're life requires you to be everywhere at once, you learn to observe a lot more of the city just to stay preoccupied by something."

"Holy crap! This is incredible! Thank you so much, Josie!" Dagas exclaimed as she leaned over the small table to give Josie a huge hug.

"No problem! Although, I do require a reward for my helpful services," she said with a mischievous grin.

"Oh lord…" Dagas groaned. "What do you want? Money? A ride somewhere?"

"Nope; I wanna meet these hot roomies of yours. I'd like to critique their level of cuteness," she demanded in a sly tone.

"Fine, you can meet them," she sighed. "But I still have till five before we can see them and right now it's about," she paused to look up at the ticking clock hanging over the front door. "1:15, so we still have another three hours and 45 minutes."

"That's okay! I can wait! It'll be worth it to see your new guy friends. Besides, this'll give you more of a chance to see the town and make more observations if you need to. We'll just wander for the rest of the day. Oh, where are you supposed to meet up with your buddies?"

"Central Park."

"Perfect! I can find us a shortcut there from any part of the city! Let's go!" she demanded before grabbing Dagas by the wrist and forcing her to tag along.

The rest of the day worked out just how Josie said; all they did was wander. True, every once in a while they would stop to sit down and observe the surrounding people and the stupid things that they were doing, but the two would soon set off again once their fun was over.

Eventually, time came and left and sooner than they thought, it was just about quarter to five. With nothing else left for them to go see in the small time they had left, the two decided to head over to Central Park to go meet up with Dagas' "hot guy friends".

"Hey," Matt greeted his friend who was slouched over on a bench in the middle of the park where they planned to meet.

"Yo. How was your investigation?" Mello asked as he rubbed the fatigue out of his left eye.

"Okay, I guess. I got a lot of data and I saw some interesting fights in the malls."

"Thug fights?"

"No, cat fights at fashion depots for top of the market dresses and high-heeled shoes."

"Well that sounds like an interesting thing to watch."

"Only if you're not in the middle of it. I witnessed a store clerk get pounded to a pulp by two chicks 'cause the shoes they were fighting over were reserved by someone else."

"Ow! Poor guy," Mello scoffed.

"Naw, I don't feel one bit sorry for him. If he works in a place like that, he should know to back away from a fight like that."

"Eh, good point."

"Hey guys," Dagas greeted, interrupting their interesting chat.

"Hey, 'Dag."

"Hey."

"So, what is this about a cat fight?"

"Matt was saying how he saw some ridiculous cat fights in fashion stores over dresses and shoes."

"Man, those kinds of fights can be the worst to get mixed up in!" Dagas said.

"Aint' that the truth," Matt replied.

"So how was your investigation?" she asked Mello.

"Brutal. The station was cold and damp, the trams were loud and half the time they smelled like child vomit, and various kids kept tugging on my hair and asking me why I don't cut it short. And their parents didn't do a damn thing about it either! They just sat there and read the papers!"

"Jeeze, talk about irresponsible parents!" Dagas said.

"Yeah, but at least their irresponsibility gave me some good notes."

"Well that's a plus."

"So how did yours go?" Matt asked.

"Pretty good, actually. I got some good notes of my own in the first two hours," she said as she held on to the notebook.

"Just the first two hours? What did you do for five hours after that?" Mello sternly questioned.

"Well, I ran into someone who gave me the rest of my notes. Actually, she gave me most of the notes that I have here," she said as she handed them the notebook. "Go ahead and take a look."

"Holy shit! That's a lot of notes!" Matt exclaimed.

"Who gave you these?" Mello asked.

"I told you, a friend did… and she did ask for me to do something for her in exchange."

"What?"

"Well, she's one of my old friends from my home town and, well, I told her why I'm not dead and I told her about you guys, and…"

"And what?" Mello sternly asked.

"Well, she said she wanted to meet you guys… and I told her it was okay."

"Wh-what…?" Matt stuttered.

"Guys, I give you my old friend, Josie Synclare," Dagas announced as she motioned towards a tree behind her. From behind the tree popped out the peppy goth, hope in her heart an a wide smile spread across her face.

"Oh, you liar! They are to hot!" Josie scolded before giving Dagas a slap on her fore arm.

"I beg your pardon!" Matt choked out, his gaping mouth imitating the perfect fly trap and his eyes looking as though they were about to pop out of their sockets.

"Uh, what exactly is that supposed to mean?" Mello stuttered, his bright red cheek bones starting to blister through his makeup.

"She got the instant impression that I was living with hot emo guys when I said I was living with you two," Dagas explained as she rubbed the bridge of her nose. "And I said you could be considered, ahem, "hot", but it depends on your preferences."

There was a short pause before Matt rhetorically asked, "What, so you're saying that we're not sexy bitches? Well, I must admit, I feel deeply offended!"

"What the hell was that, man?" Mello said with a swat to Matt's shoulder.

"What? Aren't you upset that we aren't considered sexy?" he asked with a humorous grin.

"Goddamn, what the hell is wrong with you?" Mello groaned.

"Hah! Okay, I underestimated these two. You've got some pretty cool roommates, Al-"

"Um, I don't go by that name anymore… Like, I haven't used that name since I left. It would be wise if you just called me Dagas," Dagas requested with a cringe.

"Oh, that's why they called you that! Well, if you insist, Dagas," Josie corrected herself with a little friendly nudge to Dagas' arm.

"So, is she just here to meet us, or did you decide it would be funny to screw up everything by letting her tag along with us?" Mello asked; his voice as serious as it could be.

"Wait, what?" Dagas asked, a confused look drawing down her face.

"Come over here for a second," he demanded with a swift, stressed flick of his finger. "What the hell were you thinking?" he furiously whispered once she had followed his direction.

"What? I didn't think I did anything wrong! This is a close friend and I figured tha-"

"No, you didn't! You didn't in any way think this through! What if she's on B's side? Huh? What if while you're in town one day, she decides to ask you out for a drink and stabs you in the throat with a knife? Ever thought of that, genius?"

"I didn't think about that because I know I can trust her, ass hole! What the hell do you have against her?"

"Her killing us in the middle of the night because you told her everything!"

"Oh, would you just shut your fuc-"

"Ahem!" Josie loudly said to gain their attention.

"What?" the two both screamed in unison as they turned their attention to her.

"I hate to interrupt this lovely chat, but I would like to make it clear here and now, I am a full out pacifist. Even if I was on this "B's" side, I wouldn't be able to kill anybody, let alone harm you in any way."

"I'm sorry, how did you hear that?" Mello cautiously asked.

"Well, you two weren't exactly whispering very quietly. It's not that hard to pick up on a conversation that loud."

"Oh… was it really that loud?" Dagas asked with a nervous grin.

"Uh, yeah," Matt answered.

"Well, now that that's been put out on the table, could I ask you a few questions?" Mello asked.

"Oh dear lord, give her a break! She's no killer! I mean, look at her," Matt said as he lifted up one of Josie's skinny arms. "There's not a muscle on these arms! You seriously think she could kill a man with this flimsy body?"

"It's true; I am a little weakling," Josie said in a tone that made her seem like she had just been flattered.

"The average human is capable of some amazing things, and killing is one of the big things on that long list. Realize that the hardest part about killing someone is actually killing them, although certain people seem to have more skill in the matter than others. That's why you can't trust everybody you see waltzing down the street," Mello pointed out before giving Josie a nasty glare.

"Well, if you think you're so high and mighty on the matter, than why don't you turn me into the police, huh? Demand a background check? I swear to god, I would never harm a human on this planet!" Josie interjected.

After a short pause, Mello said with a fiendish grin on his face, "You know what, why the hell not?" Within seconds, Mello had already pulled out his phone and had punched in the special number for L's private cell phone.

"Oh my god, you can't be serious!" Matt cried with an offended glare aimed at his stubborn friend.

"Oh, I'm serious as hell. I'm not just letting this slide by me like nothing happened," he corrected with the cell phone now brought up to his ear.

"Hey Dagas," Josie said.

"Yeah?"

"I changed my mind; this guy's a total nut case!" she corrected herself while pointing her thumb to Mello.

"Yeah, he's like that a lot…"

"Ryuzaki, I need you to do some thing for me… Background check… Yeah, her name is Josie Synclare."

"Oh my god, this is so stupid!" Matt groaned.

"Hey, how do you spell your name, and is Josie your full first name?"

"Dear lord!" she groaned before writing her full name and the correct spelling on a slice of her sketch book paper.

"Thank you," he said as he snatched the paper out of her hand. Immediately, he listed off the spelling of her name and waited for L's results to come back.

"I don't know why you insisted I do this, but her background checks out fine; no felonies except for a single speeding ticket from four months ago," L replied with a confused look spread across his face.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure. She's just your average citizen."

He let out a heavy sigh. "Alright, that's good to know. Now what do we do about her?"

"It depends; who exactly is she?"

"She's one of Dagas' friends from her old home town. She claims to be a complete pacifist, she herself is a pure shade of black and apparently, Dagas told her that she was living with us three."

"Wait, did she specify who she was living with or did she give her something unspecific?" L frantically asked.

"Dag', when you said you were living with us three, how exactly did you put it?"

"She told me that she lived with two guys she met in LA and then you two made her move in with another friend of yours," Josie answered, an aggravated look sliding across her face.

Mello then repeated what Josie had said.

"Okay, good. Then we can at least slightly avoid getting her involved in our job. Listen, here's what I want you to tell Synclare…"

"Josie," Mello said once L had hung up.

"Yeah?"

"You're free to be around Dagas if you want to be, but right now you need to go home; we have some important college things we need to get done."

"Sure, 'cause your college classes totally involve giving background checks to strangers. Yeah, I'll believe that when pigs become commercial airline pilots," Josie scoffed as she got up and grabbed her things.

"Whatever. Think what you like, but we still have things to get done."

"Fine, have fun with your "homework.""

"Oh, Josie! Before I forget; could I get your number?" Dagas asked as she pulled out her strange phone that Matt had made with his own design.

"Sure," she said before listing off the ten digit number. "And can I get yours?"

"Uh, I have a private call number, so I have no clue what it is," Dagas improvised.

"Oh okay then. That's cool." Before making her leave, Josie stepped forward and gave Dagas a strong hug farewell that could warm even the frostbitten autumn air. "I'm so glad to know you're alive. Seeing you has been the best thing I've seen in years. I hope we can meet up again sometime soon… bye!" she said as she let go of her dear friend and left the park.

"Bye, Josie!"

"Well, now that that's done, let's get on back to the hotel," Mello said as he started to walk off.

"God, you can be such an ass hat, you know that?" Dagas furiously asked Mello as they all began to walk in the direction of the hotel.

"On the contrary, I find myself to be a great person," he replied with a cocky grin.

"Yeah, whatever…"

Once the three had arrived back to the hotel, the first thing that was done was have L check their notes to make sure that they collected enough information to be able to blend in with the city life. He first checked through Matt and Mello's notes and found them to be quite accurate and eye opening to any other person. Although, those two sets of notes couldn't even compare to the notes that had been collected in Dagas' notebook.

"My my, these notes are fantastic; great handwriting, all organized by part of the city, full and accurate descriptions… and yet, only one of the ten notebook pages have been filled in your handwriting," L noted aloud without taking his eyes off of the notebook which he carefully held by the top page corners. "Tell me, if you're not the one who wrote these notes, then who did?"

"That would actually be Josie… I told her I was collecting information on behavior for a school project and she said she would help. I had no say in it and, frankly, I'm glad I didn't. I must admit, she did a way better job than I could have."

"So miss Synclare is the one who did this fine work… hmm, interesting…"

"Why do you say that?" Matt asked.

"Well, looking at these notes, I can tell she's very observant. By that I can see that she has a very high intellect. Come to think of it, I've been thinking that we could maybe find a police officer willing to be an inside informant, but I see now that there's no need for that."

"Wait, you're not saying that…" Mello stuttered.

"Yes, I am; since she has a clear background check and since she's closely connected to Dagas, this may be a good chance to have an outsider on our side."

"Wait, so you're saying you trust this chick?" Mello angrily objected.

"No, I can't say I completely trust this girl, but we do need an outside source to tell us if they see something going on… Did any of you get any contact information from her?"

"I did!" Dagas said. "I got her cell phone number."

"Great, then we have a way to contact her if need be. Dagas, I have an important task for you to complete," L said as he lifted himself out of his seat.

"What is it?"

"Two days from now, I need you to set up a meeting with her; it can be anywhere you like as long as you're surrounded by enough noise so that you can't be overheard. I'll create a note explaining everything she needs to do. All you need to do is tell her you need her to help us and then casually give her the note; clear enough?"

"Crystal."

"Perfect, then that means we have a game plan started. Good work you three; you may go about the rest of your day now."

"Alright. Um, do you need anything before we go?" Dagas politely asked.

"Um… I don't believe so. Thank you for the gesture," he said.

"Alright then. Good night, Ryuzaki," she said as the three left.

"G'night," Mello followed.

"Later," Matt said.

"See you three tomorrow," L replied as the door shut behind them.

"What was that about, Dag'?" Matt asked with a curious grin as he rubbed some of the makeup off his cheekbone.

"What are you talking about?" she asked.

"You trying to get real chummy with Ryuzaki?" Mello elaborated.

"Well, we do live with the guy. I was just trying to be nice," she argued.

"Yeah, whatever you say," Matt scoffed.

"Wait, what did you think I was doing?" she nervously asked.

"Nothin' it was nothin'," Mello said with an amused grin.

"Damnit! What are you two thinking?"

Instead of just politely answering her question, the two simply walked away while silently laughing under their breaths.

"Just answer me! Uhg! I don't like not knowing things!"


	6. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

So, the story so far; by now, it's about two days following the day that the three used to take notes. Yes, as a matter of fact, today is the day that Dagas was ordered to meet up with Josie once again. As planned, they agreed to meet at a crowded Caribou Coffee on one of the busier sides of town. The way that it was seen, the small, crowded coffee shop would be noisy enough for the two to avoid being heard by anybody else attempting to listen in on their conversation. Lucky for them, it was about lunch time so just about any café or restaurant would be crowded by noisy people struggling to get their lunch. At about 12:15, Dagas walked through the doors of the Caribou Coffee, her image reinvented once again as to avoid being noticed by anyone on the other side, if B had gathered anybody yet.

"Hey, Josie," Dagas called out to her once she spotted her friend on the far side of the room, sipping her drink with a pencil, eraser and notebook in hand.

"Hey Da… whoa," she stuttered as she got a good look at her friend.

"What? Is there a bug on my shirt?" she nervously asked.

"No, you just look like a totally different person today! What, are you taking fashion classes too?" This, of course, was an expected reaction. Two days ago when they had first met up, Dagas was seen wearing some very plain clothes. Baggy grey hoodie, worn out jeans, her hair tied back into a messy bun; you know, the kind of stuff you'd find a lazy man wearing after just being fired from his low paying job. Today, however, she decided to go all out with the whole "peppy bitch" outfit. Her hair was waved out with a slight tint of glitter, her shoes were streaked with a bright tint of highlighter pink, and the rest of her clothes- Abercrombie hoodie, Abercrombie V-neck, Abercrombie jeans, all Abercrombie. Truly the spitting image of an all out Aberzombie roaming the streets, attempting to find more brethren to suck the life out of others by criticizing their fashion sense.

"Cheezus! Is the zombie apocalypse here already? Oh, I better go get out my Green Day CD's, a huge boom box and some glitter remover, 'cause there's no way in hell that those Aberzombies are getting me into those shitty clothes!" Josie humored with an utterly appalled grin.

"Yeah, yeah, yuck it up all you want. Trust me, I'm scared to look at myself in the mirror right now," Dagas groaned.

"Hell, I would be too if I were you!" she agreed. "So, what's up?"

"Nothing really, although, I would like to ask you an important question at one point," Dagas said as she took a seat across from her friend.

"Alright then. Oh, by the way, here's the stuff that you asked me to get," she said as she pulled up a plastic gas station back from the floor. "So, tell me, why exactly did you ask me to get so many chocolate bars? Seems kinda weird for one person to eat so many."

One of the things that Dagas had requested while on the phone with Josie the day before was that she go to some sort of convenience store and get a few things for her. Since the rest of the group wasn't allowed to use credit cards in fear that they would be tracked through the usage of it, there wasn't exactly an easy way to go to a store and buy food without being noticed. Instead, Josie was asked to get a few items. A hand full of those items consisted of two large packs of Hershey's chocolate bars. Mello was told by the security guards at the airport that he wasn't allowed to bring food with him on the flight, so, with a heavy heart and his short fuse just about to run out, he had to leave his chocolate bars at home, which meant leaving behind the one thing that he had grown a terrible addiction to. Lucky for him, Josie was kind enough to get him a few packs, which would be assumed to keep him satisfied for the next few days.

"Yeah, about that. Mello; the guy who got pissy with me yesterday because I brought you with me."

"Oh, right, that guy," she groaned.

"Yeah, him. Well, he has this really bad addiction to chocolate. Like coffee, it keeps him awake to do his reports in the middle of the night, so he needs them to stay awake. He just ran out and he's been getting kinda edgy, so all this is is keeping him from exploding in public."

"Oh, I see! So, I take it he has a short fuse?" Josie asked.

"Very short."

"Wow, so he gets pissy like that a lot, huh?"

"Ah, only if you set him off. There are certain things that can get him going, and once it does, it's not very pretty."

"God, that doesn't sound fun to deal with."

"Well, if you feel like putting it that simply, then yeah," Dagas said with a content grin like this was just another everyday, normal conversation.

"Huh, well isn't that interesting. So, you said you wanted to talk with me about something important. What is it? Need more help on another "project"?" she asked with air quotes around the word project.

"No, no, nothing like that. Listen, what I'm about to say to you is really important, and you need to make sure that you don't tell another soul about this after I've said it. Understand?" she said with a serious look on her face and in her tone.

"Uh, yeah. I swear, I won't tell anyone about this," she stuttered, surprised at Dagas' sudden change in mood.

"Good, now listen close, because I won't repeat myself," she said as she leaned forward so she could speak softer. "You're good at taking notes, observing surroundings, telling if something about the atmosphere around you has changed, right?"

"Uh, yeah. Some people have actually asked me if I would accept money to do stuff like that. Why?"

"Because we feel that we could put your talents to use." She paused for a moment to rifle through her Abercrombie shoulder purse. "This right here," she said as she pulled out an envelope, placed it face down on the table and slid it towards Josie. "will tell you everything you need to know. I can't explain everything to you myself, due to the circumstances, but this should give you all the explanation that you need."

Without a word, Josie casually slipped the envelope into her Corpse Bride themed shoulder bag.

"Don't open this until you're at home and you know you're alone. I can't say anymore that I've already said, so I have to go. I'm sorry this ended up being such a short get together, but it's the best I can do until you accept what the letter says," she apologized as she got up from her seat. "I'll call you later."

"O-okay. I'll see you later," she stuttered as she watched Dagas disappear through the thick walls created by the two large lines in front of the cash register.

As she made her way out, Dagas took a look up at the single camera at the east side of the shop. She breathed a relieved sigh as she saw that the camera's only viewing point was faced to the cash register, out of the range of where the two had been sitting.

A little while later as Dagas was walking back to the hotel, she got a call from Matt, who seemed eager to get an answer to his immediate question.

"So, did she take the letter?" he asked before Dagas could say hello.

"And a good afternoon to you too," she sarcastically replied. "Yeah, she took it. I told her to open it once she was home and alone."

"Perfect! Did Ryuzaki tell you what the note said?"

"No, but it's not that hard to guess what it said. It's probably just giving her the general idea of what we're doing and how she can help. Why do you ask? You curious?" she asked with a grin.

"No- well… Yeah, I guess so. I just find it really exciting to know that L gave somebody a special note. I've heard of the reactions of other people that have been asked by L for their help. Some have tried to refuse, others have been ecstatic to help. It's always different depending on the person."

"Huh, I guess I wouldn't get it since I didn't go to an orphanage where they taught you to treat L like some sort of god," she scoffed. "True, it is hard to think of L as an almighty official power in the world since we live with him 24/7."

"Eh, true, but it's also hard to believe that he's just one person doing all of those incredible things."

"Yeah, that is true too."

"Well, I've got a few things to get done here. Ryuzaki's already got me looking for another hotel for us to go to within the next week," Matt groaned.

"Oh dear lord! Not this again! I hate switching hotels like this!"

"Yeah, I think that goes for all of us. Anyways, I'll see you when you get back."

"'Kay, see you then," she said as she hung up the phone and shoved it back into her Abercrombie bag, which she could have sworn had burned her hand to the touch of it. As she continued her walk, she thought with a curious grin, "Huh, I wonder what Josie's reaction will be… it's gotta be interesting…"

Not too long after Dagas had left, Josie, in a state of subtle fear and great confusion, slammed down her pumpkin spice mocha and left the Caribou Coffee as fast as she could without drawing too much attention to herself. Feeling as though the rest of the world was staring at her as she raced out of the café, she refused to take a taxi and struggled to race to the nearest subway station as fast as her scrawny legs could carry her. The second she made it to her apartment complex, she bolted up the stairs and slammed the door shut the moment she made it inside her studio apartment, leaving no lock unturned.

As silence filled the rest of the apartment, all she could find herself able to do was sit on the hardwood floor, leaning against the navy blue front door as if the rest of the city was pounding the door and waiting for her to answer. For a long while she allowed the quietness to unleash it's self upon the room, her physical being refusing to allow her to make a sound. Soon enough, she found that she couldn't stand the anticipation of not knowing what was in the mysterious letter.

Slowly, she uncoiled her right arm from where it gripped at her bunched up knees to reach over to where her bag had fallen off her shoulder. With stiff limbs, she reached in and pulled out the envelope that she had held firmly in the bag until she returned to her home. She flipped it around to the front side to see if it said anything important; nothing. It just looked like a plain envelope; no tricks, nothing important. For a split second, Josie considered that this could just be some sort of prank, but to have it be this elaborate? No way was this a joke.

Feeling ridiculous after sitting on the hardwood floor for the past ten minutes, she hoisted herself off the ground and brought all her things to the coffee table in the middle of the room. Soon after, she placed her Corpse Bride bag on the table, allowing a few pencils and some makeup to tumble out onto the wooden surface, and slammed herself down onto her small black loveseat, the letter still gripped in her hands.

With a cautious hand, she brought her fingernail to the edge of the envelope and began to tear apart the seal. Once the letter had been released from its paper prison, she carefully unfolded it in fear that one false move would rip the paper. Printed on the paper in a dark, Times New Roman font was a message stating this,

_Greetings, Giovanna Synclare,_

_I trust that you safely received this letter without being given any trouble about it. If so, fantastic. Now, I know exactly what my detectives have been telling you about "coming to New York for their college classes", and let me tell you now, that is not at all the real truth of things. What is really happening is something that most police would assume to be far out of their power to deal with. As you read this, there is a dangerous serial killer on the loose, possibly strengthening himself in numbers right now. At the moment, my comrades and myself are working on catching this man as soon as possible, but there's no way we'll get anywhere without an outside source; this is exactly what we need your help for. I have been told that you're observation skills are absolutely phenomenal, and that is precisely what we're looking for. All we ask for you to do is contact us the second you see something change around you; that includes unrecorded crimes, something amiss on the dangerous sides of town, or anything else that relates to these. _

_Realize now that if you accept this job, you are accepting entering a dangerous world where you could be targeted at any moment in time. If you still accept this job after knowing that, then in three days, you are to meet up with one of my detectives at the location and the time given at the bottom of this letter. Once you meet there, you will be given contact information to get in touch with us once you notice something that may be of importance. Note that once you have the location down you are to burn this message and the envelope before doing anything else. _

_I expect to hear from you very soon. _

_Sincerely,_

_L _

"…L?" she slowly whispered out after finishing the letter. Such a short letter to utter out, but what an amazing meaning it can hold. Although she was completely shocked that L would ask for her help, she accepted everything that had been stated after remembering that there was no way anybody could turn down a request from L himself.

Quietly after making up her mind, she arose from the single sofa, tore off the address that had been given at the bottom of the message, and took a few short steps to one of the bottom cabinets at the other end of the room. From the cabinet, she pulled out a portable camping stove, plugged it into the wall, and placed it on the ground. After taking a seat on the hardwood floor, she clicked on the stove, setting a small flame ablaze in front of her feet. Taking the half of the note with the request, she held it lightly over the flame until it came apart and sent paper ashes fluttering into the air above her. Once the paper was gone and the stove had been turned off, she lay down onto her back and thoughtfully looked up at the tiny ashes hovering down to the ground, landing around her or onto her own clothes and face, the thought of working with L swimming in her head and blocking out anything else in her world that ever held meaning.

Later that night in a secluded, seedy part of town:

"So what did they say?" asked a bulky man leaning on the arm of a chair in the middle of the room.

"They said they're all in. I figured they would be all for it anyways; Grayson will do anything if it involves money," replied another bulky man who had just hung up his phone.

"Yeah, well why doesn't somebody pay Grayson to jump off a bridge into shark infested waters? He'd probably do it anyways!" grumbled a cocky man who was smoking in the far corner of the room.

"If you paid him enough, I bet he would," scoffed the man who made the call.

"So, you said they're in?" asked a scrawny man slouched on a one person couch, eyeing a strawberry that he held in his hand.

"Yep, as long as their paid."

"Perfect. Now that we have enough people on our side, I suggest we get down to business."

"And what would your definition of business be?" asked the man who was just finishing off his cigarette.

"We make a little noise, that's what."

The others in the room were silent, not knowing what this man was getting at.

"Basically, we're going to make ourselves known; that's the first step. The man that we're trying to lure in has to know we're here and we're here in numbers. Now we can do this in many different ways, although, the most effective way to gain his attention is to commit a crime that will get us on the news the following day," he stated while still eyeing the fruit grasped in his fingers.

"So, something like that would have to be a murder or a massive robbery. Something along those lines," stated one of the other men.

"True, although, I was thinking of using two of my close friends to get the job done," he said, a gruesome grin spread across his face.

"And who would those "friends" be?"

"A sturdy knife and a big fire," he replied before crushing the strawberry into a pulp in his pale fist. "We'll have to find a quiet apartment complex full of peaceful people, including a few children, and a place where they don't ask questions when you go to buy supplies that seem suspicious. I'm sure at least one of you knows where we can find a store that fits the bill," he stated as he began to lick the fruit pulp off of his hand.

"I think I know a neighborhood that has a few apartment complexes like what you stated," said a man who had just walked into the room with a pack of cigarettes in his hand.

"Outstanding," the scrawny man slurred. "This is working out perfectly in our favor. Now that we have all this, the fun can finally get started." He paused for a moment to look around at the people surrounding him. "I sure hope you all know how to kill a human the right way, otherwise we'll have some kinks to work out."

"Wait, there's a right way and a wrong way to do it?" asked a younger man at the other end of the room.

"Well, of course there is. I mean, you wouldn't just drug somebody, beat them a bit with a bat, and expect them to die immediately, would you? No, see humans are built to be sturdy creatures, which is why a child won't die of a broken arm or a grown person won't die of a seasonal cold. They weren't meant to die so easily, which is precisely why you need to know exactly how to kill them the right way; it's as simple as that."

"So, you're saying that some people are going to die by our hands?" the young man asked.

"That's what we're counting on," the scrawny man replied with a devilish smile.

"Heh… sounds like fun."


	7. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

There she was, not knowing what she could have been thinking, wondering why she agreed to all this, not making sense of what this all meant. Never the less, she was there anyways, cautiously walking down one of the most crowded Hispanic gangster hangouts that she could think of. Josie knew just about everything there was to know about NYC, and one of the many things she knew was to stay out of this seedy neighborhood unless she wanted to be beaten black and blue or be harassed about her ethnicity. In a place like this, the only genre of feelings you could feel were multifarious synonyms of the word "fear", which can mean a hell of a lot of emotions swimming through one's mind.

She walked down the dimly lit sidewalk, yanking her black jacket tighter as more Hispanics gave her discouraging glares of hatred and hoping that she could receive her information without also receiving a monstrous bruise or two. After a while of making no eye contact with the smoking Mexicans sitting on the front few stairs of their apartment complexes, she reached a bare 5 stair flight. Upon the concrete stairs, a lone man sat, his head down and a lit cigarette dangling between his lips. Simply looking at this lone stranger nearly sent shivers up your spine. True, the only reason for this sudden fear would simply be because he was alone, and yet something else about him reassured you that he meant no harm.

After taking a deep breath, Josie walked up to the stairwell, took a seat and instantly struggled not to start shivering upon contact with the ice cold concrete. There were a few seconds of complete silence as the lone man puffed out a few clouds of smoke before the man slightly looked to his left to see who had taken a seat. Through his messy bangs covering his eyes, he saw Josie quietly looking ahead to the black, bare road ahead of her. By choice, she refused to look the man in the eye.

Without a word, the man cracked a smile and drew another breath from his cigarette. He kept his slouched posture as he pulled a white envelope from his borrowed leather jacket and handed it to Josie out of the view of the other gangs surrounding them from all ends. She casually took the envelope from his gloved hand and slipped it into her tightly gripped jacket.

And with that, for the first time that entire night since the man had taken his post, he looked all the way over to look at Josie through a kind and gentle pair of eyes and said in a low yet inviting tone, "Welcome to the club." She nodded with a friendly smile and left the stairs feeling like she could rule the world with what she held in that envelope.

As soon as she had left, she heard the voice of a tough sounding Hispanic yelling at the lone man to get off his "territory". She heard a few hard hit attacks and one of the men falling to the ground before she actually turned around. By the time she had looked, the lone man had already knocked the rather large Hispanic to the ground, leaving him with two teeth less than he had had to argue with before hand.

She instantly turned back around and resumed walking down the street, thinking with a discouraged look on her face, "I'm gonna have to work up the ranks a bit to get to half his level."

"So, how'd it go?" Mello asked once Matt had returned.

"Pretty good. Staying in character kept everybody else away, although it made me feel extremely unwanted," Matt replied with a humorous grin.

"Aren't we both used to that by now?" Mello rhetorically questioned.

"Eh, true," Matt agreed as he slipped off the leather jacket and tossed it to Mello. "Here's your jacket back, by the way."

"Oh, thanks. But, for god's sake, keep these," Mello replied as he tossed back Matt's half a pack of cigarettes.

"My bad," he said. "Anything new here?"

"No, not yet, although Ryuzaki has locked himself in his room since you've left."

"Isn't that to be expected?"

"I suppose."

"Well, I would love to stay and chat, but there were no goddamn taxis or subway stations anywhere near where I made the hand off so I had to walk about ten blocks to get out of the hood. My feet ache and my eyes are rolling into the back of my head, so I gotta sleep."

"Alright. See you tomorrow."

"Later, man," Matt replied as he closed the door to his room.

Mello followed and walked to his door, but stopped dead in his tracks as he caught a whiff of the smell of nicotine emanating off of his favorite jacket. He let out a quiet, angry snarl before opening the door to his room and slamming it shut behind him.

A few hours after Matt had finally fallen asleep, he was awaken in the middle of the night by a few horrified moans across the hall and a fierce pounding on his door. He opened the door while rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and before he knew it, he was being dragged by Dagas into L's room where his television set was turned to a popular news station. Mello and L had already been in the room by the time Matt had arrived and they were both staring at the television, horrified looks plastered across both their faces. With nobody bothering to explain what was going on, Matt directed his attention to the television which was showing camera views of a huge fire. Compared to the building in which it started in, the fire didn't seem like it had been all too bad, until he heard what the blond news caster woman began to explain what has already been uncovered by authorities.

"The fire, which was reported at 1:16, has been doused, although the damage has taken a great emotional and financial toll on many of the residents of the complex," the woman reported into her large, unnecessary microphone. "Many of the possessions of the residents have been lost and..." she paused to take a listen to her earpiece. "I have just received word that several horribly charred bodies have been found at the sources of the fire. After a brief search, thirteen bodies have been confirmed, along with another four burn victims. No word has been given about the bodies, apparently due to the condition of the bodies themselves.

""Condition of the bodies"? What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Mello quietly snarled.

"It means that the bodies were too damaged for anybody to handle looking at with a calm composure," Dagas replied.

"This is horrible…" Matt added.

For a long while, all anybody in the room could do was gape at the screen showing the news reporter who, even herself, couldn't help but have a glint of sadness in her eyes. All about the floor, you could hear people in their own rooms weeping and marveling in horror at what was being displayed on the screen. It was so sudden and so destructive. It is fact that murder and other crimes are committed every day in New York, but nothing as horrifying as this had happened in years. Due to that, this one tragic incident seemed to have all of New York's attention in that single moment.

"No…" L whispered with his eyes locked on the television.

"What?" Matt asked.

"It's him… he knows we're here," he stuttered.

There was a short silence before Mello asked, "You don't mean…?"

"There's no doubt in my mind."

"B," Matt and Mello both simultaneously agreed.

"Wait, wha… it's the number, isn't it… 13?" Dagas asked after finally tuning in to what was going on.

"Precisely. On average, it takes someone three minutes to get out of a burning building and call for help. That would mean that the fire would have started at roughly 1:13 AM. In military time, if it was 1:13 PM, then the time would be 13:13. The police have, after a full search, found a total of thirteen bodies, apparently in too gruesome of a state to give a description of, and the cause of death that the public is currently thinking of is fire. There is no way that thirteen bodies could have been burned to that sort of degree without being dead before the fire was started. And even then, the reporter wouldn't have been told that it was due to the condition of the bodies unless they were disfigured even past terrible burns. In no way was this mere coincidence…"

"Does this mean you'll need some hacking done?" Matt asked.

"Well, unless you actually want to go to the crime scene the day after, get yelled at by the police and be immediately tracked by B and whoever he has on his side, it would be wise to hack the information rather then personally go find it," L stated.

"Ah, I see. And would I be in charge of that or would that be you?"

"I'll be the one taking care of retrieving the information. While I do that tomorrow, I want you to be generating a fake ID and I want you to get us four hotel rooms booked for us to leave three days from now."

"Understood."

"You are free to go back to sleep, although I expect you all to be up as early as possible. Time is officially of the essence," he said as he got up from his seat and began to return to his spot in front of his laptop.

As soon as L had returned to his post, the other three left the room, the thought of sleep being the least of their worries. What had just occurred was a challenge; the kind of challenge where you win or you're history. B had made his move, and now it was high time they made theirs.

As the three returned to their rooms, Dagas was stopped by what looked like a snooty high school freshmen. She tapped Dagas on the shoulder and asked, "Hey, do you know what the hell is going on with everybody on this floor? They're all ruining beauty sleep with their whining."

Dagas sighed, knowing the exact kind of person this was and knowing that this girl wasn't going to ever realize tonight that the world doesn't revolve around her. "You know what's going on? Something that's going to ruin your beauty sleep for a long time if you're planning on staying in New York. People have just died and many more are soon to come, I can assure you of that," she seriously replied as she began to walk away, rubbing the spot on her Anime t-shirt where the girl had touched her.

"God, no need to be such a bitch about it!" the girl called back.

"Tck. Slut," Dagas commented loud enough for the girl to hear before pulling the door shut behind her.

For the remainder of the night, none of the four investigators could find the fatigue in order to sleep. All four of them ended up staying up late watching what the other news channels had to say about the incident. Some gave more information than others, but the exact same phrase came up at the end of every report: "No word has been given about the bodies due to their conditions." It was clear that what ever had happened, B had done some serous damage.

By morning, Josie had already dialed one of L's numbers to report that the entire city was buzzing about what had happened last night. Some people were saying they knew some of the people who had died, and others were already discussing the possibility of this being the work of a killer. Not that it wasn't obvious that this wasn't an accidental fire, it's just that L thought that there would be more of a delay to this discovery. Either way, the entire city was ablaze with talk about the incident, which didn't help much for L's investigation. With the whole town buzzing about it, there would be no way to decipher who was the killer bragging about his handy work and who was just discussing it.

As hard as the city's discussions made it, L was still relieved that he was able to get some straight info from the police files without being noticed (as if he'd get noticed hacking into any system). The moment the photos were scanned in and the partial reports were made, L was immediately able to print it all out and find what he needed.

As he siphoned through the photos, he was hardly surprised to find the large variation in the causes of death. Some body's were found with slit throats and a few other violent actions taken to the body, four were found missing a limb or two, weather it be a few fingers or an entire arm and a leg and others were found cut and beaten to death. One body was found with both its hands and feet cut clean off, one was found with its entire chest beaten until it caved in, and one, of a little girl, was found with its eyes, ears, and tongue gouged out. This was obviously done as a "humorous" pun; see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. As clever as it was, it was still quite tragic for L to look at.

Strangely, the one thing about the bodies that never differed was the fact that they had all been stacked into the middle of their individual apartments before being lit on fire all at the exact same time. This clearly meant that B wasn't alone. He had strengthened himself in numbers and was basically saying through this tragic act of brutal murder "come and get me." As frustrating as this realization was, B had to be stopped, and if that meant accepting his challenge, then so be it.

Later on in the day, Matt had reported to L that he had booked four hotel rooms on the same floor, ready for them to be there in three days. True, it wasn't the best hotel money could buy, but it's not like it was very out in the open either, so getting a couple rooms was pretty easy.

The rest of the day was spent collecting information and avoiding the outside world. For all they knew, B could be roaming about right then and there, waiting for them to curiously immerge from their hiding place. None of them wanted to risk that just yet, so none of them worked up the courage to go outside the hotel.

As time was sucked away by simply trying to find the truth, three days had passed by before their very eyes and just like that it was time to change location. All four of them ended up walking out of the hotel differently than they had walked in on their first day. All but L wore and array of concealing makeup to keep their true identities a secret as they left the building to head to the nearest subway station. Many at the front of the hotel and on the subway couldn't help but at least take a quick glance at the mismatched group. Of course, it was pretty normal for there to be at least one mismatched group of people per subway car so the four of them really had nothing to fear. Despite that, their fear easily engulfed them into their own personal bubble until the train made it to their stop.

Once to the hotel, the four were all relieved to see that the streets surrounding it weren't all that busy therefore giving them a bit of security in being there. Inside, they checked in with a lazy teen at the front desk flipping through the latest issue of Gun World magazine. He groaned as the four approached the desk before setting down the magazine, looking up their reservation and handing them the four room keys.

"Here're the keys, have a nice stay, blah, blah blah, whatever…" he lazily groaned out before returning to his hunting magazine.

"Jeeze, ever heard of sincere service with a smile?" Matt whispered to himself.

"I highly doubt it," Mello replied.

By the time the four had arrived to their rooms on the 6th floor, they immediately began setting up all the equipment. Once finished, Matt began to go up and down the hallways to figure out the exact angles that all the cameras turned to on each floor. After reporting of a total of two cameras per hall way, he returned to his room and began to contemplate how to deactivate an average surveillance camera without having to touch it or the control panels. Figuring out how to make something such as that was a little bit to ahead of the day for any normal scientist, but he figured he could do it within a year or two. Tops.

At about sunset that day, Josie called once again, but not for the reason she was given the number for. Quite frankly, L was beginning to get a bit worried about her abusing the use of those numbers he gave her, but he tried to ignore it. He'd rather not ask for help from the police just yet and Josie was great at what she was assigned to do, so he chose to forget about it.

"Great! You answered," she exclaimed once L answered his phone.

"Yes, do you have something important to report?"

"Well yes, I do, but I'd also like to ask for a favor."

He sighed, "What would that be?"

"The last time I saw Dagas, she totally wigged me out with the note that you wanted her to give me. I didn't really get a chance to chat with her so, if you can get a hold of her for me, could you please tell her I was hoping we could hang out later tonight?"

"Damn. I was afraid of this happening…" he angrily thought while chewing on his thumb nail. "If she goes out tonight with Josie, she could be spotted and our location could be given away. On the other hand, if she stays in a crowded area, then it would be harder to pick her out. Then again, there's no need to take the chance of getting caught… Although, if Dagas goes out then this would give her a chance to make some observations of her own that Synclare hasn't specified just yet… And it's not like I want my detectives going stir crazy…"

"Um, are you still there? If the answer is no, then I don't mind!" she defensively insisted.

"It all depends. Where were you planning on taking her?"

"I was hoping to take her to Hot Topic and Spencer's at Queens Center Mall. Is that okay?"

He sighed again. "I suppose that would be fine. Just make sure to be careful. Dagas will tell you what I mean."

"Thank you SO much!"

"And the information?"

"Oh, right… I was planning on telling you when I picked up Dagas."

"And you actually expect me to be with them out in the open?"

"Well… uh…" For that single moment, she had blanked out on the fact that L was a secret detective who would protect himself at all costs. The world believes that he's still in hiding and always has been. For L, this is exactly what he needed the world to think. Nobody else was to know that Ryuzaki is L, end of story. "No, I wouldn't expect that at all of someone like you. I apologize for my foolish thinking."

"No need to apologize," he replied. "If you really plan on giving out the information when you arrive at their location, there is someone who you can talk to about that. I'll let him know that you'll be giving him that information. Just do remember to directly tell me next time instead of holding it off."

"Will do."

Before hanging up, L gave her the name of the hotel and Dagas' room number and made sure to emphasize the importance of not being spotted. Once his phone was placed back in his pocket, he began to chew harder on his thumbnail as he stressfully thought of the outcome of the situation.

Within about twenty minutes, Josie was standing in front of Dagas' hotel room, a bright smile on her face and her credit card ready for a full night of abusing.

"Hey Josie! You ready to go?" Dagas asked upon opening the door.

"Yep! Oh! I spoke with, ahem, your boss before I came here. I said I had some info I was going to give him once I got here. He told me to give it to his assistant. Who's that?"

It took Dagas a few seconds to realize what Josie was referring to when she said "assistant". The only assistant Dagas ever remembered L having was Watari, and he wasn't really regarded of as an assistant at all. Although, after a few seconds, Dagas soon realized what L had meant.

"Oh yeah, his assistant! Come with me, he's in the other room," Dagas said as she closed the door behind her and led Josie to Ryuzaki's room. "Hey, Ryuga. Josie said she had some info for you," she announced as she knocked on the door.

He opened the door and replied with, "Ah, yes, my boss said you would be coming here."

"Whoa!" Josie exclaimed after getting a good look at him.

"What? Is something wrong?" he innocently asked.

"Um, is he anorexic?" Josie whispered into Dagas' ear.

"No."

"Is he sick?"

"No."

"Then what the hell is wrong with him?"

"Absolutely nothing," Dagas replied with a humorous smile.

"Then why does he look like that?"

"You do realize I can hear exactly what you're saying, right?" Ryuzaki added.

"Oh… uh, I..." she stuttered as her cheeks began to turn a shade of rosy pink.

"It's okay, I kinda had the same reaction the first time I met him. This is Ryuga; our boss' right hand man."

"Pleased to finally meet you face to face, Miss Synclare," he said as he held out his hand in greeting.

"Uh, yeah, you too…" she stuttered as she awkwardly shook his pale hand.

"Please come in. I can't wait to hear what information you've gotten," he said as he invited her in.

"Um, it's nothing too long. It's just something I've noticed before the news stations have."

"Well, let's hear it," he insisted.

"Ever since that huge fire from three days ago, the crime rate all around New York has started rising. Not by much, but enough for me to notice."

"And by crime rate you mean what? Violent crimes? Childish burglaries? Crime in general?"

"Mostly measly crimes, but I would classify it as crime in general."

"I see. One major crime occurs which causes the rest of the criminals in the city to feel like they can do whatever petty crimes they want now… Interesting information. Thank you for reporting that."

"No problem. Um, it was nice meeting you."

"And you as well."

"We'll be back by 11:00 at the latest," Dagas said.

"Alright then. Do be careful," he warned.

"Alright. Later!"

"You say you're leaving?" Mello immediately asked as the two passed his now opened door.

"Uh yeah, and you can't come with," Dagas replied.

"I know that, I was just wondering."

"Sexy scar you got there," Josie commented.

"Um, thanks?"

"God, where do you get your clothes! I can't find pants like that anywhere?" she immediately asked.

"Uh… I have no idea," he replied as he looked himself over.

"Well, where ever you got em', stick with that style. It totally fits you," she said as they walked away.

"Um… okay."

"Catch you later, Mello," Dagas said.

"Yeah, see yah."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Holy halibut, Batman, was that seriously…?"

"Yeah, that's Mello without his disguise. Thinking differently of him yet?"

"Damn, if he keeps that sexy leather on, I think I could get past his short temper!"

"Hah! Trust me, he's way better to get along with once you get to know him."

"And you think I care about getting along with him? Naw, I just want him for that smexy look! Meow!" she squealed.

"Oh my god! Shut up! You're gonna make me puke!"

"Say, Ryuzaki," Mello asked him once the girls had left.

"Yes?"

"Are you sure it's safe for those two to go out on their own like that? You know Dagas hasn't exactly had the physical training that we have, right?"

"I'm aware, and no, I don't think it's all that safe to go out into public like that. But they're going to a busy place, so it should be harder to pick them out of a crowd. Dagas knows how to protect herself. She should be fine."

"I sure hope you're right about this," he said before leaving as fast as he had entered.

"I hope so too," L whispered to himself once Mello had left.


	8. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

"Thanks again for getting me out of my work tonight. God, all we've been doing is working our asses off since we got here! I would say it's completely insane if it wasn't necessary," Dagas groaned as she and Josie began to walk down the sidewalk to the nearest subway station.

"Oh, no problem. I've wanted to actually hang out with you since the first time I saw you here anyways," Josie kindly replied. "Speaking of which, do you change your style and, uh, face every day?"

"Oh… Well, whenever I go out into public, yeah, I do. Since you're on our side now I can actually explain this to you; Matt, Mello and I are part of the in-depth part of the case. Being that the criminal we're after actually knows what we look like chances are that either he or some of his buddies are out looking for us. We'd rather avoid being shot to death, so we have to change our appearances every time we leave the hotel."

"Yes! I finally get it now! And, damn, talk about being the ultimate poser!" she exclaimed.

"Yeah, no kidding. So, you said we're going to Spencer's and Hot Topic?"

"Yep. We could go to Journeys too. That is, if we have the time."

"Alright. That's perfect because I've been meaning to get a new pair of gloves lately. Mine are all worn out."  
>"Fantastic! I need a new pair of Converse while we're there"<p>

"Dang, at this rate we'll probably be an hour late!" Dagas joked with a grin.

Soon, the two had finally arrived at the station. By this time of night, right after sunset, the stations were pretty clear while the streets were crowded with taxis. For their own safety's sake, most people chose to take a taxi since the subways could get kind of dangerous at night. Thugs in their baggy hoodies would crowd around a single bench on the platform and wait for future harassment victims to walk past. Unless you stood in their way, all they would do to you is lower your self esteem and pop your personal bubble, but for most of them, a third strike is something they couldn't afford. Therefore, no real damage was done to the innocent bystanders.

While on their train headed for Queens, several brave people and a couple thugs were spotted, all of them spread across the tram. While the thugs were simply sending everybody warning glares that had no meaning, the train was pretty silent aside from a guy pleading to his girlfriend to not leave him. The thugs paid extra close attention to this annoying man, although he never noticed.

Once the train had made it to Queens, the two quickly made their way off the train to get as far away from the thugs as fast as possible. As soon as they immerged from the dark underground station, the two were bombarded by a flurry of lights blaring in all directions. Advertisement signs flashed their ads for Coca Cola and JCPenny and street lights flared from all angles, whether it be from the traffic lights or the tail lights of the taxis that crowded the streets.

"Wow, so this is how Queens looks like at night," Dagas commented.

"Yup. Blinding, isn't it?"

From where the entrance to the station was, there was a bit of a walk between there and the mall. This gave the two time to talk before entering the crowded stores. As they walked, the two soon passed a tall, boarded up building that seemed to catch Dagas' eye. All of the entrances, from the windows to the front doors were all tightly sealed up with huge planks of ply-wood. Looking at this, Dagas was reminded of some of the old abandoned buildings she had rummaged through in the past while living in LA. Be that as it may, this kind of a place spiked Dagas' interest to a new level.

"Say, Josie," she said as she stopped in her tracks to take a look at a board that read in white spray paint letters, "R.I.P. St. John's". "What was this building for?"

"Oh, St. John's used to be a hospital. Not the best hospital in the world, but I've heard it provided average health care," Josie answered as she looked up to the top few floors of the hospital.

"Why'd it shut down? Contamination? Infestation?"

"Nope, St. John's used to be in a partnership with a chain of other hospitals. They dropped out with a couple others and just like that, St. John's was closed down. Nothing too serious. I doubt it was anything more than bad business."

"Huh… looks pretty cool… I wonder what kind of supplies they would have in there," Dagas wondered aloud.

"I wouldn't be surprised if the place had already been cleared out. You'd have to be pretty stupid to close down a hospital and not sell the perfectly good supplies in it."

"Yeah, I guess you're right… Still, it'd be a pretty cool place to wander around, wouldn't it?"

"I suppose. But I don't think it would be a good idea to just break in, though it is fun to think about."

"Yeah, no kidding… Oh my god! You've gotta get me away from here before I break in myself!" Dagas desperately pleaded.

"Alright, alright! The mall is just down the road. Let's get going."

Within a few minutes, the two had finally made it to the mall. For a few moments, Dagas had to consider if she was dreaming this up or not. Looking at it, the mall seemed to be able to take up a good three blocks. Though, even with that rough estimate in mind, the entire place was much bigger than that. Like most malls, the two biggest stores that you had to try to avoid getting lost in were Macy's and JCPenny. Other than that, just about the rest of the mall was packed with small stores around each corner. Many late night shoppers, such as the cop-avoidant punks and the judgment-avoidant goths, roamed the walkways struggling to find their favorite stores, clothing brand or the best place to get dinner at the food court.

Soon enough, with a gleeful smile on her face, Dagas immediately skipped off ahead of Josie to go find the Spencer's she so desperately had been hoping to find. With no sense of where she was, Josie soon found Dagas observing a map of the mall's layout not to far from where she took off. After a while of walking, the two soon stood outside the exotic store with Dagas happily staring at the rainbow lettering of the store name above the entrance.

Inside, the two both marveled over the many accessories they had in store, such as the many silver necklaces, the strange neck ties, humorous rubber wrist bands and the dirty apparel. Unexpectedly, they found themselves just looking at the merchandise for over a half an hour. With most items, they laughed at the funny jokes and the crude remarks on the bumper stickers, and with others they sighed and both thought, "so-and-so would have loved that". As sad as remembering past wonderful friendships was, the sadness was soon replaced by a half a rack of Charlie Sheen T-shirts that mostly said some variation of the phrase "winning!"

With part of their wallets sucked dry just with the visit to the one store, they walked out, arms weighed down with each their own bag of fun trinkets and outfits.

"God, I never get tired of going there!" Dagas said as she rifled through her bag to find her new pair of studded gloves.

"I know! It's just one of those places that you can't help going back to."

"Totally. Man, I aught to go back there with Mello one of these days. He needs new bling than what he always wears now."

"What kind of "bling" does he wear?"

"He's got this long, beaded cross necklace and matching bracelet that he wears all the time. I'm not saying he should ditch it, but I do think that not taking them off and replacing them while wearing a disguise might be a little dangerous," she clarified.

"I hear yah. That would be kinda dangerous if someone were to notice that."

"No kidding."

"Dah fuck, man? What's you're issue, cracker?" hollered out what sounded like an angry punk from behind.

"Fuck you, man! I'm outta here!" called another angry punk as he stormed off in the direction of the front entrance. As he stormed off, he smacked right into Dagas, shoving her off balance and leaving her with the strange smell of the man's baggy hoodie on her left arm.

"Hey, watch it, man," Dagas groaned as she regained her balance.

The irritated man stopped dead in his tracks at the sound of Dagas' complaint. Instantly, he pivoted around and marched right up to where she stood.

"What'd you just say, bitch?" he snarled through gritting teeth.

"I just thought that it was kinda rude for you to almost knock me over like that," she innocently replied with an irritated look in her eyes.

"Dag' just let it go. You don't wanna get mixed up in this," Josie warned in a whisper.

"You got something to say too, scrawny?" he barked.

"No, not at all," she said in a pleading tone.

"Listen, I better not be hearin' any more back talk from you two bitches, got it?" he snarled at both of them.

"No, I don't "got it". As pissed off as you are, there was no need to just ram into somebody like that. Take a chill pill and get over yourself," Dagas bravely demanded of him.

"Wha… Dah fuck did you just say?"

"Dagas, cut it out! You can't take on a guy like that. Let's just go," Josie pleaded of her.

Before Dagas could get a chance to give a response to Josie, the angry man brought his foot forward and used the momentum to violently shove Dagas to the floor, causing her to hear several cracks from her stiff joints. Quickly, she pulled herself up to her knees but was immediately shoved right back down by the man's scuffed up shoe before she could get to her feet. With one fell swoop, the man reached down and yanked Dagas up off the ground by her arm.

"You're dead, you little skank!" the man growled at her before bunching up his fist to make an aim for her head. Quickly thinking, Dagas ducked down before the punch could make its mark, and before the man knew what was going on, she slammed her clenched fist into the man's lower abdomen. It wasn't exactly the best maneuver, but it kept the man down long enough for Dagas to get the hell out of his way.

Frantically, she stood up and reached to the ground to get her bag from the floor. She snatched it up and started to run forward to get out of the man's way. This escape was found to be in vain when the man suddenly got up from where he had fallen and reached over to grasp onto Dagas' leg. She slammed back down to the floor along with her bag. She frantically turned around to see what the man was about to do, and before she could even begin to think straight, the man pulled back is arm once again to make another attempt at her face. With nothing in mind to defend herself, she froze in terror, thinking the last thing she would ever see was that fist hurtling right at her face.

Out of the blue and right as the fist was about to make contact with her face, there was a loud crack, and the man fell to the side, unconscious and unable to cause any harm. As the man fell, he revealed a brown haired young woman from behind him who had just chopped a stiffly held hand down onto one of the pressure points on his neck. With the fear adrenaline still coursing through her body, Dagas scooted backwards and away from the woman before even thinking of getting up. She soon brought herself to her feet, her whole body shaking at the experience that she had just witnessed.

"Dear god, are you alright?" the stranger fearfully asked.

"Uh… I-I think so…" Dagas stuttered.

"Oh, thank god! I was sure that man had already seriously injured you by now! Why was he so angry at you?" she asked in a concerned tone.

"I… I said something stupid and set him off," she sadly admitted.

"Well, at least you're safe."

"Um, how did you knock him out like that?" Dagas asked.

"I'm a black belt in Taekwondo. And, by the way, you should try to choose your words better the next time something like this happens. You could have been seriously hurt," the woman warned.

"I'll keep that in mind," she said as she picked up her things from the ground. "Thank you so much, ma'am."

"No problem," the woman kindly said before calling over the mall security that stood across the walkway.

"Are you sure you're alright?" Josie asked in a concerned tone.

"Yeah… I'll be okay… Let's just go back, or at least go somewhere less crowded," she asked.

"You wanna go hang around Hot Topic?"

"No… I think I just want to go back…"

"Alright, we can go," Josie sadly sighed as she wrapped a comforting arm around her shell shocked friend.

Though Josie attempted to start a couple conversations, the trip back to the hotel was pretty silent. Dagas preferred not to talk all that much and Josie was too worried sick about her to want to talk about anything humorous or chat about some sort of unrelated subject. After the long, quiet journey back, Josie insisted that she take Dagas inside so she wouldn't have to go alone. Once up to their floor, Josie asked once more, "Hey, you sure you're alright?"

She sighed as she clutched the door knob to her room in her hand. "Yeah, I'll be fine… I'm sorry this had to ruin our time."

"Oh, I was just about out of spending money anyways. Don't worry about it," she insisted. "I had a good time anyways. We should do this again sometime. You know, during the day?"

"Yeah, that sounds nice," she hopefully replied. Although going back did sound like fun, in the back of her mind, she was sure that Ryuzaki would never allow her to do this again after what happened to her. "Thanks for the fun time," she said.

"Any time, Dag'," Josie sweetly replied as she gave Dagas one last hug goodbye. "I'll call you guys if anything comes up."

"Well, it is your job," Dagas humorously pointed out.

"Heh, that is true. See you later."

"Yeah, good night."

"'Night," she replied as she began to walk back to the stairwell.

As soon as the heavy door to the stairs closed behind Josie, Dagas leaned on her door and slid down to the floor, feeling every ache and pain that she had acquired from the incident. Feeling ashamed of her actions, she pulled her arms around her knees and buried her face down to hide her still lingering sense of fear. At that moment, Ryuzaki opened his door and immerged to come greet Dagas.

"Well, you're back earlier than I would have anticipated. Did something happen?" he asked, ignoring Dagas' depressed position.

"Yeah… something did happen," she said after a long pause as she brought up her head.

"Did B attack you?" he quickly asked.

"No… it wouldn't make a difference though. Even if it was him who attacked me, I still wouldn't have known what to do…"

"Pardon?"

"I was attacked by a thug who I pissed off and I had no idea what to do. I could barely fight back and even when I did it just pissed him off even more…"

"I had a feeling this would happen," he sighed. "So, you couldn't defend yourself?"

"Not properly, no. I just sat there and almost took the worst beating of my life."

"Did he hurt you at all?" he asked in a concerned tone.

"Not really, but he could have done some serious damage…" she sadly admitted.

He let out a disappointed sigh. "Well this is just awful. So you're saying you've been solving all of these cases in Japan and yet you don't know any sort of form of combat?"

"No. I solve the cases and sit in the background with the extra handcuffs when we have to make an arrest. Matt and Mello have some great martial arts skills, but I can't swing a punch without getting maimed."

"My word… Well, I suppose we'll have to fix that, won't we?"

"How? Go to a training gym and get caught there by B's new gang members?"

"Of course not. There's a training gym for something like that on the ground floor, correct?"

"I would assume so. Why?"

"Matt, Mello and I can teach you. We all have knowledge of the same martial art so we can each give you an understanding of it."

"Wait, you know a martial art?" she asked in a confused tone. "I don't believe it."

"Well, I would suggest you would believe it otherwise teaching you may prove to be quite difficult."

"What do you know?"

"Capoeira."

"Capo-what? Is that seriously a martial art?"

"Of course. Ask Matt and Mello if you don't believe me. It's not the precise art, since we have developed some different techniques, although the same principals apply."

"I still seriously don't think that's a real martial art, but if you really insist, then I guess I could give it a go," she said in an unenthusiastic tone.

"Alright then. We can meet up in the gym and start tomorrow at, let's say, 8:30. I'll be expecting to meet you there on time," he said as he began to walk back to his room. "And, by the way, be ready to learn fast. If you want to learn to defend yourself, you're going to have to be willing to work quickly."

"Alright," she said as she got up. Once his door closed behind him, Dagas mumbled, "Is he asking or demanding me to learn this? Really."

Within about 15 minutes, Dagas was out cold and ready to just leave all of this night behind her. She fell asleep still upset by the fact that she couldn't have made a move. Even more so, she was still frustrated with the thought that this was just a phony martial art that Ryuzaki planned to teach to her. Putting these thoughts behind, she soon decided it would be best to just sleep it off.

At the time that she had set her alarm, Dagas was woken up at about quarter to 8 to another popular radio song by Nicki Manaj which she didn't care for in the very least. Not looking forward to her lesson for the day, she lazily rolled out of bed and went about her morning routine before slipping into a pair of sweat pants, a grey tank top and pulling her long hair back into a pony tail. With a filled water bottle in hand, she made her way downstairs and through the lobby to get to the gym.

As she entered, she noticed a significant lack of people in the room. Although, even with the few numbers, the only thing any of them were doing was observing two men fighting at the other half of the room. Curiously, Dagas walked up to the group of people and observed with the crowd. In front of her she witnessed two familiar men, arms and legs flying about to try to gain the advantage in their fight. Near the end of the fight, one of the men swung his foot high into the air to make an advance for his opponent's face, but missed when his opponent swooped down and jutted out one of his legs, sending the other man tumbling to the floor as the foot violently made contact with his leg. In victory, the winning man placed his bare foot on top of his opponent's chest and said, "And that's what happens when you're a smoker trying to win a fight."

"Oh, shut up," the man on the floor wheezed. "I could have beaten you."

"Yeah, if you were actually paying attention," his opponent scoffed.

In response, the loosing man grabbed his opponent's free leg that was placed on the floor and yanked him to the ground, creating a loud thud on the mat they had been fighting on. At this, the observing crowd began to quietly snicker at their humorous bickering.

After finally getting a good look at the two opponents, Dagas soon realized that it had been Matt and Mello who were displaying such an epic fight. For a moment, she almost couldn't believe her eyes. These two had just shown true proof of their skills and now Ryuzaki expected her to learn all that. Seems impossible, but nothing is set in stone.

"Fantastic work, you two," Ryuzaki commended as he got up out of the corner he had been sitting in. "You both did great, although, Matt, I would suggest brining your legs a little higher when you make a move like that. You'll be doing yourself a huge favor by doing so."

"Got it," he said as he got up from where he lay.

"Ah, Dagas, you're finally here," Ryuzaki greeted her once he noticed her presence.

"That, what they just did, was amazing!" she exclaimed.

"Quite an amazing way to fight, isn't it? Creates a sense of flexibility and allows you to practice trying to anticipate your opponent's next move… That is what you'll be learning."

"Wait, you expect me to learn all that?"

"Well, not in one sitting, but I can teach you the basics and you can work off of that. We'll have to move this at a fast pace since we all have work to do, but a team is only as strong as their weakest link, therefore this is all quite necessary for you to remember."

"Alright," she said with a nervous look in her eyes.

"So, are you ready to get started?"

"Uh, sure. I guess so."

"In that case; first lesson…" With a single sudden lunge, Ryuzaki had made his way into the air, far above Dagas' small stature, and with one graceful swoop had curved himself all the way over Dagas' body. Before she could even contemplate what was going on, Ryuzaki had already gotten behind her, leaning on all fours out of her sight range. She struggled to make haste and turn around to see what was going on, but she had only just turned her head around to see her boss jut out his right leg, sending her flying straight down to the ground. With such a powerful, sudden move, she was left rubbing the back of her neck where it could have snapped if he had actually been seriously fighting an opponent.

Within a few seconds, Ryuzaki had already gotten back onto his feet to look down at Dagas who was still a little hazy of what had just happened. As he held out his hand to help her up, he continued with, "… always know what your opponent's next move is. Without that knowledge, you'll become a very easy target to nail."

"Yeah, I'll definitely keep that in mind," she squeaked out in a raspy tone before taking hold of his hand.

"Well then, if you're not injured at all from the fall, are you ready to continue?"

"Uh… I would say no if I wasn't obligated to continue," she said with a sigh.

"Good. Now, although that was the first move I've shown you, it is far too advanced, so you have nothing to fear about starting there. Like I said, we'll start with the basics."

"Thank god! If that was what he calls "basic" I think I might have had to have a purposeful aneurism," she thankfully thought.

For the rest of the morning until noon, Ryuzaki and the other two displayed some of the basics of the martial art. Knowing how Dagas was upset that she couldn't defend herself, Ryuzaki made sure to start off with showing her some defensive moves after she learned the basic movements of the art. By the end of the lesson, she was able to block or avoid most of the moves that Matt and Mello had thrown at her. With Dagas being a visual learner, most of what she was taught came easy for her to remember and understand.

By about 12:15, the lesson was over, and surprisingly, the crowd that had been there when Dagas had first arrived had stayed the entire time to watch every move they made. True, one or two had left due to other plans, but both wished they had stayed. By the end, all of the gym people, who had originally come to work out, were now badly imitating some of the basic poses as if they were 10 year olds trying to play ninja. At this, Matt and Mello had now found an excuse to laugh at the people who had been laughing at them before. It truly was a foolish display, but it got a few laughs, not only from Matt and Mello, but from a few other people who were walking past the huge window to get to the pool.

"What are you guys supposed to be? Samurai disco dancers?" Matt called over before hysterically laughing at his own joke.

"If that means you are too, then I guess so," heartily replied a cocky woman who was making a strange crane pose.

"Alright, that's enough. We need to be heading back," Ryuzaki told them as he slipped on his beat up sneakers.

"Hey, wait a sec!" called a younger man who really needed that workout time. "What was with those martial arts? Oh! Are you guys ninjas? Are you from Japan and everything?" he asked with a vibrant smile.

"I suppose you could say were ninjas. It's not like we're in any sort of ninja secret society though," Matt said with a shrug.

"Super sneaky squeaky ninja society!" Dagas quietly squeaked.

"What?" Mello asked with a sudden look of confusion. He turned to look at Dagas in an instant, looking at her like she had just swallowed a coat.

"Uh… nothing!" she quickly said.

"Ah, whatever," he sighed as he made his way to the door.

Once the three had left and the glass door had closed behind them, the slightly pudgy man said with the vibrant smile back on his face, "Sweet! We just met ninjas! God, I can't wait to tell Trevor when I get home!"

"Yeah, why don't you tell him first that you need liposuction," said the cocky woman before walking to one of the rowing machines.

"Ouch, you just broke me," he groaned before grabbing his water and getting back to what he had come here for.

"Well that went better than I had thought it would," Dagas said with a satisfied smile.

"I must admit, you did great for your first day," Ryuzaki commended.

"Why thank you, good sir!" she said in a slight British accent.

"Heh, so Ryuzaki, what do we have to get done when we get back? Do you have anything specific in mind?" Matt asked.

"Actually, I have something for all of you to do."

"What would that be?" Mello asked.

"Well, I was planning on you and Dagas looking up some specific facts related to the information Miss Synclare gave us last night."

"And what will I be doing?" Matt asked, wanting to be included in the work.

"You, Matt; I have something special in mind for you to do. I expect that it will be something that can truly put your skills to good use."

"Uh… what does that mean?" he slightly stuttered, hoping it wouldn't be anything too extreme.

"Oh, you'll find out soon enough," he said in a forewarning tone. "All I can say is that I would suggest being prepared for anything."

"Oh joy..." he said, suppressing a groan. "Would this happen to be on location work?"

"As I said, you'll find out soon enough," he repeated.

"… Yeah, on location it is."


	9. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

It had been a long day for the investigation team, what with using search engine after search engine without finding the clearest of results. True, the endless search only truly took its toll on Mello and Dagas that day. As Ryuzaki had said earlier in the day, based on what Josie had told him last night, he did have something special in mind for both Dagas and Mello to do. It was a time consuming, boring task, but it was as important to the case as anything else.

"So, how's the work going, Mello?" Ryuzaki asked as he walked in to Mello's room to check on his progress.

"Pretty good. I actually think I've found what we're looking for," he said with his eyes firmly locked on his laptop.

"Damn it!" Dagas cried from the other side of the wall separating his room from Dagas'.

"What was that about?" Ryuzaki quizzically asked her the moment she marched into Mello's room to join them.

"You guys always figure out everything before I do! Do you know how stupid you make me feel on a regular basis?" she rhetorically asked, adding a slight humor in her tone as to avoid sounding too angered.

"Oh, come now. You are not stupid at all. Besides, you've figured out a few things before any of the other people on your task force back in Japan," Ryuzaki said at a failed attempt of reassurance.

" 'A few'? Damn, don't I feel special…" she groaned as she gave Ryuzaki a disappointed glare.

"What? Did I say something wrong?" he asked Mello. His shaking head was the only response Ryuzaki got to that.

"Anyways, I think I've found a location."

As Mello pulled up a tab with statistics on it, Ryuzaki walked over to take a look at the information, his index finger thoughtfully placed on his lower lip as he loomed over Mello's shoulder.

"From the information that I've gathered, it's clear to see that the fastest growing crime rate has taken location in the general Manhattan area. I decided to do some extra research on this and, although the news reporters have taken a slight notice to this, all they seem to be taking it as is a stream of petty crimes that have no meaning. Pathetic as it is for them not to notice…"

"It makes it easier for Matt to accomplish what I was planning without being noticed," Ryuzaki finished, his eyes still looking at the statistics that had been gathered.

"Exactly… By the way, what do you have in mind for Matt to be doing?" Mello asked.

"Like he assumed, I will have him doing on location work. Sadly for him, as anti-social as he would like to be with the outside world, he is the only one of us who can do it," he explained as he backed away from the laptop, both of his hands now shoved back into his deep pockets, as per usual.

"Well, too bad for him," Mello said with a pleased grin. As for his case, he was just thankful that he wasn't the one going out to do Matt's job instead. He'd much rather do a pile of research and paperwork if it meant avoiding being victimized by the general public.

"Thank you for the research. Although you're both done, I would appreciate that you would save your work just in case we need it for future reference," he stated as he stepped out of the room.

"Alright. Have fun breaking the news to Matt," Mello called back with a humorous grin. Although he received no response, he still took pride in his unneeded sarcasm.

"Seriously? You want me to go out to do that?" Matt asked once Ryuzaki had finished telling him what he would be doing.

"Is that not what I just said?"

"Ah…" he groaned as he swung his head back. "When do you want me to get this done?"

"As soon as possible. We can't afford to waste any time at the moment."

"Damn… So what should I be looking like for this? Someone from We Energies who always wears and unnecessary workers helmet, or an on-site Best Buy employee?"

"I would have to say neither, simply because we don't want people asking too many questions. Simply a white t-shirt, a hat and a pair of jeans should do the trick."

"And if anybody ends up asking too many questions?"

"I suppose that would be up to you and your judgment, but I would try to just ignore them, if I were you."

"And for mode of transportation?"

"I've already taken care of that. I rented a pickup truck for you online. You'll have to pick it up by 6:00 tomorrow. I've also taken the liberty of asking Miss Synclair to buy a ladder from the hardware store. You'll also have to go pick that up from her home once you pick up the truck. Got that?"

"Yeah, I got it."

"You have the equipment that you'll be needing for tomorrow, correct?"

"Please, what do you think I do in my free time? Of course I have it."

"Yes, but do you have at least 120 of them?"

"120? Really?" he exclaimed as he shot his head back up.

"Yes, really," he said with all seriousness. "Do you have all of them?"

"Well, yes, but that depletes my supply by 78 percent!"

"That would actually be 80 percent," he corrected him.

"Damn!" he groaned, his hand stressfully sliding down his cheek. "Well, I have the stuff either way."

"Good. I'll have a map of all the camera locations printed out by the end of tonight. I suggest you check that you have everything in order before you go to sleep tonight."

"Yeah, I'll get on that."

"Fantastic. I thank you again for being able to do this on such short notice," he said as he began to make his way to the door.

"Yeah, no problem."

"Have a good night, Matt," he called back before leaving the room.

"Yeah, you too…" he replied. After waiting until his door had closed, Matt angrily mumbled under his breath, "He thanks me for agreeing to do this when he knew I had no choice. God, he's backwards."

The next morning at around 6:45, after Matt had picked up the white pickup and the ladder from Josie's house, he set out to central Manhattan. As little as he liked the idea of it, he was just about to set out to what his job would be for, more than likely, the entire morning. You see, for an entire chunk of the day, he would be posing as a local maintenance worker for the area. His dreadfully repetitive and boring job would be to go to every security camera in the area and place a device in each and every one of them without being caught by any sort of higher authority.

The sole purpose of this was to record everything that the cameras see and stream it directly to a laptop specifically set aside for this. That way, the investigation team could observe the criminal activity in the area, try to find the cause of the sudden crime spike, and, if they got lucky, find out who was now working for B.

Anyway, it was a week day, which made the streets quite crowded with people struggling to get to work, whether it be by car or fast walking past the large masses of people. For his first few stops, Matt was a little nervous about his task, what with so many people surrounding him. He struggled to keep his eyes on his job, but couldn't help but notice the many people who would spare a short passing glance of curiosity as they walked or drove by. Thankfully, after the first 10 or so stops, Matt had finally gotten used to the scornful glances of the bystanders who noticed his work.

Though he managed to get past the judging stares of the locals, there was another thing that he wished he could just ignore. Unfortunately, ignoring it wasn't the best of moves since it only made the situation worse little by little until it stopped. Yes, it was the harassing comments of the delinquents. Many teenagers in the area, stupid as they are, think it's a fantastic idea to skip school every other day. Most of these teens had already been to Juvie at least once, so they knew how to harass the perfect victims at the perfect times. Matt, with his weak-looking body structure, was a perfect victim for harassment, which is why no matter how much he wished it to stop, these teens weren't going to leave until they've had their fill.

At about 10:30, Matt was only just about half way done with his job and was in the middle of being distracted by yet another group of stereotypical white gangsters with baggie hoodies draped over their shaved heads. They quickly got bored of Matt just ignoring their comments and left after making a few smart remarks. As relieved as Matt was that they finally left, the thugs were soon replaced by yet another unwanted disturbance. Behind where Matt was balancing on his ladder there stood a suspicious man. As opposed to most of the other passersby who would just take a look and move on, this one just silently stood there looking up at where Matt stood.

There was a long slot of time where Matt never noticed the silent stranger staring at him. This moment soon broke when the man asked, "What're you doing?"

Without pausing or turning to identify the man, Matt rudely replied, "Are you blind or just stupid? What does it look like I'm doing?"

"I realize what it's supposed to look like you're doing," the man suspiciously replied.

"Buzz off; I'm just trying to do my job."

"And your job would be what?"

"I'm just a maintenance worker. Nothing more," he insisted.

"Are you really, or do you just want me to think that?"

"Okay, why are you trying to pry at me?" Matt angrily asked as he spun around in a fit to get a good look at the man who was really starting to get at his last nerve.

Looking up at him from the sidewalk below, Matt saw a man who seemed to stick out like a sore thumb. He seemed to look like an overdressed business man with his black suit and tie get-up. He bore a head of shaggy black hair and a facial structure that held a permanently serious air to it. He wasn't the strongest looking of men, nor was he too weak looking to throw a punch. His shoulders were broad and face presented a pair of suspicious eyes and a very chiseled jaw.

"I'm just trying to figure out exactly what you're doing," the man replied.

"I'm just checking out all of the street cameras to see if they're operational!" Matt insisted.

"If you're permitted to fix the street cameras then who do you work for?"

"A lower class electric company."

"If that's so then why does your vehicle not have your company's logo on it?"

"It's a newer truck that we haven't printed the logo on yet," he said as he closed up the camera he had just finished working on.

"Sure doesn't look like that to me."

"Listen, I'm telling you for the last time; I'm just a maintenance worker trying to make a living by doing my job," he insisted again behind grinding teeth.

"No you're not."

He let out a frustrated sigh before sliding down the ladder, folding it up, and saying to the man, "I am what I said I am."

"Then why do you seem to be so unhinged about doing your job?"

"This is my first day."

"No company would allow you to work on something like this on your first day of employment."

"I meant my first day in this department," he said as he slammed the ladder into the back of the truck.

"Seriously? You're lying through your teeth."

"Listen, I've had enough of this. I have work to do, so go find someone else to bother the shit out of," he snapped as he opened the driver's side door to the truck and hopped in. he tried to close the door, but before he could, the strange man had already grabbed the door handle and was yanking the door open with all his might. Out of nowhere, he blurted out in a frantic tone, "You've noticed the crime rate too, haven't you?"

At that moment, Matt soon found that this was the one point in the conversation where he had absolutely nothing to say. He was completely silenced by this sudden and shocking question.

"You've noticed how New York's entire crime rate has been rising ever since that fire the other day? And how Manhattan seems to have the fastest growing rate in the area?"

Matt still could do nothing but remain silent.

"Listen, I realize you probably think I'm crazy due to the way I acted, but know that we're on your side."

"_We're"? What does he mean by that? _Matt thought as he gave the man a confused look.

"You don't have to trust me; in fact, I don't expect you to trust me at all. But if you need any assistance," he said as he slipped a grey business card into Matt's lap. "Don't hesitate to call." With that, the strange man let go of the door handle, backed away from the car and began to walk down the sidewalk like nothing had happened.

_What in god's name was that?_ He asked himself, confusion spinning around in his head as he looked down at the business card. He barely had put any thought to what was printed on it before placing it in his jeans pocket and starting the ignition to go to the next location.

"I swear to god, it was the weirdest thing I've seen here," Matt explained to L as they sat on a bench by the back wall of the hotel gym.

"And you had no clue who he was?"

"Not at all. He never even bothered to say his name."

"Maybe he's FBI or CIA?" Mello suggested as he took another swing at Dagas with his foot.

"Not likely. They would take longer to make the connection with the murders and the crime rate. They should notice once the media takes an interest to it, which may still be a while," L replied.

"Could it be an undercover division stationed here?" Dagas asked as she blocked a couple swings.

"It could be, but I doubt it. An undercover division would most likely be sent by the FBI or CIA, which we've ruled out."

"And what exactly did he say?" Mello asked.

"He questioned me for a while like he completely distrusted me and right as I was about to leave, he held the door open, asked about me knowing about the crime rate, handed me this business card and said he was 'on our side'."

"On our side…?" Dagas echoed before being slammed to the floor by her opponent.

"You lost your focus," he pointed out as he held out a hand to help her up.

"Yeah, yeah, I know," she groaned.

"May I see the card?" L asked as he held out his hand.

"Sure… here," he said as he handed it to him.

With a quizzical look, L held up the card with his thumb and index finger and took a close look at the print. Sitting on the light grey-shaded card, two lines of silver print were displayed. On the first line, there lye a simple phone number, suspiciously lacking any sort of New York area code. Under the phone number, the fine print read, "Call in case of emergency".

"Hmm… Interesting. Have you ever seen this number before?" he asked Matt.

"Never before in my life."

"Let me see," Mello insisted as he made his way to where the two sat. "No, I haven't seen it either."

"And neither have I…" Ryuzaki replied. "I'll have to run this through some systems later on. I suppose we're done here for today," he said, directed to Mello and Dagas, who had been practicing their martial arts when Matt had arrived back at the hotel.

"Remember not to get distracted next time, Dagas," Mello advised.

"Yeah, I got it. And It wasn't my fault; those two were making me curious!" she replied in her defense.

"Just try not to let that happen when you're in a real world situation."

"You say this like I don't know that."

"So Matt, aside from what happened, you placed all of the devices, correct?" Ryuzaki asked.

"Of course I did. It took a hell of a long time, but I got it done."

"Great, then we'll start the observations tomorrow afternoon. In the meantime, all of you get some rest. I need you all on high alert to spot anything suspicious in the recordings."

"Got it," the three all chimed in exhausted tones.

Later on after all four of them had returned to their rooms, L found it would be best to start analyzing the phone number on the card as soon as possible. Once in his room, he sat down in front of his laptop and got straight to work. Surprisingly to him, finding the origin of the phone number took much longer than expected. It had taken him about an hour to actually figure out where the number came from, but eventually he managed to find the exact user of the number. The number was apparently being used by an organization for keeping the peace all across New York, but that was obviously just a surface description. Determined to find out exactly who this man was working for, L insisted on himself to look deeper into this. After another hour or so of hacking and gathering information, he soon found who was behind this strange event, and in a word, the result was completely and utterly unexpected.

"My, my… so it's him…"

"So, what exactly did you do while you were gone?" a blond haired woman asked as her co-worker entered the dimly-lit room.

"Well, I planned on looking for any suspicious activity around town."

"You planned on it? What happened?" asked a large man from the other side of the room.

"I did find suspicious activity, but not from anybody posing to be an enemy."

"Seriously, spit it out. Who did you see?" asked yet another voice from the chair sitting in the middle of the room.

"Someone I saw tampering with the street cameras. From what I saw, he was placing rerouting devices in as many as he could. I questioned him about it and came to the conclusion that he knows what we know."

"About the crime rate?"

"Exactly. He refused to admit it, seeing as though he was undercover, but I handed him the business card before I left."

"Huh… Another person who's taken note of these happenings…"

"So what do we do now? Do we try to make contact with this guy again?" the blond woman asked the small person in the chair.

"Nope. Right now, what we have to do is just play the waiting game. If and when they need our help, they'll call and we'll be ready to answer."

"'They'? What do you mean by that?" the woman asked.

"There's more with him. And if my suspicions are correct, than I believe we've found another set of allies that will be glad to help."

The group of people were silent.

"Heh… I suppose this is what they mean by your past coming back to haunt you. I would love to call this a happy family reunion, but if who I figure is involved is, then he won't be too happy at all."

"Who are you talking about, sir?" the large man asked.

"I suppose you could call them old acquaintances…" he said as he took aim at a dart board with the dart in his hand. He paused his thought to toss the dart, hitting yet another bull's-eye. "More or less…"


End file.
